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MINING TOWN SERMONS 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 

Short Sermons Preached in the 
Mining Towns of Colorado 



BY THE 

REV. 0/ % OSTENSON 

Sometime Archdeacon of 
Western Colorado 



MILWAUKEE 
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 
1914 



COPYRIGHT BY 

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO., 
1914 



MAY -I ISI4 

©CI.A371643 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Rock 1 

The Unknown God 7 

Knocking 15 

No Room 22 

Shall Sbs tup: King 29 

The Pillab and Ground of the Truth ... 34 

God with Many 40 

The Spirit of God 47 

Prayer for Others 54 

jSTot Sacrifice, but Mercy 61 

God's Kingdom not to be Defended by the Sword 66 

Sin, the Leprosy . 73 

Rising from the Sin of Death 79 

Look to Jesus 85 

The Church 92 

The Roman Catholic Church 98 

Be Courteous 104 

People May Hold their Beliefs, but Must Not 

Divide 109 

How Shall I Pray? 115 

The Lord is God Xear and Afar Off .... 121 

The Resurrection 126 

The Rest that Remainetii 132 

The Patriarchal Church 139 

The Early Christian 'Church 142 

The Church of the Living God . . . . 145 

Duty to God and Man 152 



PREFACE 



These short sermons seem so direct and practical 
that it would be a loss not to have them published. 
They were, however, not intended for publication 
when they were prepared and preached; therefore, it 
will be appropriate to say of them, what Dr. Morgan 
Dix said in the preface to Dr. DeKoven's sermons : 

"There are a few things which it would be well for 
men to do themselves, instead of leaving them to be 
done by others after they are gone. It is especially so 
with the publishing of sermons. They are generally 
written in haste and under pressure; they need revi- 
sion; no one can do what ought to be done, if the 
writer does not." 

We would call the attention of the reader to the fact 
that the following discourses are printed from unre- 
vised manuscripts, and exactly as he left them. 

Oconomowoc, Wis., 1914. Lewis Ostenson. 



THE ROCK 



Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I 
(Psalm lxi:2). 



have reverberated through the centuries in poetry 
and song, and touched the deepest and tenderest 
chords in the human heart ; words which have been 
to thousands of the sons and daughters of earth 
more than bread to the hungry, and drink to the 
thirsty; more than rest to the weary, peace to the 
troubled, and balm to the bitter and aching voids. 
In considering this passage it cannot be supposed 
that I, or any man, can add anything to the trans- 
cendent beauty and pathos of its poetry, or add 
weight to impress it upon the human heart. The 
best that man can hope to do is to allow time for 
meditation upon its wondrous meaning, and upon 
the hold it has upon the human heart, and unveil, 
if possible, portions of its beauty. Man has some- 
times been allowed to dive deep into the truths of 




HESE are most beautiful words, words 
which are sung by the Psalmist of old 
on occasions much like those many of 
us have experienced; words which 



2 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



his being, and grasp what he is not, in the common 
walks of life, always permitted to see. So David, 
and all inspired men, have seized some great truth 
of our nature and penned it to the world. But 
the world does not always see. It takes some di- 
vine pressure upon the human soul to awaken it 
to the divine realities of life ; some such influence 
as was brought to bear upon the spirit of the 
Psalmist when he was moved to touch the tender 
strains of that grand truth, or the approach of 
angelic hands to beckon us hence, will bring deep 
truths to light. 

In contemplating this text, which must reecho 
on many an occasion from every human soul, two 
things are plain: That there is something higher 
than we; and that the loftiest desire of the soul 
is to be led there. And for man to acknowledge 
this, is, to say the least, advancement. Though 
man be the crowning work of the world, yet there 
is a rock higher than he, and that is the everlasting 
Rock of Ages. "Who is a rock, save our God ?" 
says the Psalmist. "Thou art my rock and my 
fortress." "He only is my rock; the rock of my 
strength." 

The simple language of the text is like that of 
a little child, and because child-like, expresses the 
spirit of the Gospel. "Except ye be converted 
and become as little children, ye can not enter into 



THE ROCK 



3 



the kingdom of heaven." A child is taken by the 
hand and led. If a man should express that wish, 
there is hope that he sees farther into the future 
than men ordinarily do. One of the greatest 
scientists gave utterance to a universal truth in 
language like this : "I am but a child picking up 
pebbles of truth on the shore of eternity." Oh, 
if we could have all the culture and learning of 
the nineteenth century, the courage of a Spartan, 
the power of a Caesar, the sword of a Charlemagne, 
and the riches of a Rothschild, then there might 
be hopes of our having and knowing so much that 
we could see its littleness, and learn again the 
humility of a little child. With all that wealth 
and power and science can give, that childlike 
echo of the soul would be to us at times precious 
beyond compare. David must have had some 
such experience as this; he rose so high in power, 
and honor, and riches, and royalty, that there was 
none higher than he. Yet, at that very time he 
learned the sublime yet simple truth that there 
was a Rock higher. Then it was, at the zenith of 
his power, standing on the summit of his earthly 
glory, that he gave to the world in immortal verse 
that immortal prayer, "Lead me to the Rock that 
is higher than I." 

Yet it is not necessary to rise to the pinnacle 
of earthly fame in order to behold its beauty; 



4 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



that is not the direct road to the everlasting Rock. 
Nay, it rises directly out of the waters of afflic- 
tion, and out of the vale of tears. 

Think not that you will never need to breathe 
this prayer, this divine aspiration. The time will 
come, and it is not far distant now, wdien we shall 
stand on the river's brink, ready to cross, or not 
ready. If we grasp the deep truths of the world, 
we shall behold that Rock, and desire the proffered 
guidance now. But do you know that we may in 
a measure reach that Rock in this world, so that 
the waters of affliction may but help to wash us 
clean, that we may rise with Christ, who, when 
His enemies scourged Him and nailed Him to the 
tree, was in a measure afar off in the presence of 
His Father? "It was as if men flung water at 
the stars and tried to put them out, and the stars 
shone on, calmly and safely, and took no notice 
of their persecutors, except to give them light." 

In our sojourn here nothing seems to bind 
us more closely together than absence, even death. 
Alas, that a bond of union should cost so much ; 
but such is the economy of heaven. The union of 
our country was bought by the blood of its patriots. 
Soldiers died in war that we might live in peace. 
Political harmony was brought out of political con- 
fusion and hatred by the sacrifice of blood. Christ 
died that we might live. He said, "It is finished." 



THE ROCK 



5 



We are ever taking leave of something that will 
not come back again. We let go, with a pang, 
portion after portion of our existence. However 
dreary we may have felt life to be here, yet when 
that hour comes — the winding up of all things, the 
last grand rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour 
of that awful sudden wrench from all we have 
ever known or loved, the long farewell to sun, 
moon, stars, and light — brother man, I ask you 
this day, and I ask myself, What will then be 
finished ? When it is finished, what will it be ? 
Will it be the butterfly existence of pleasure % 
The mere life of science ? A life of sin and self- 
gratification ? Or will it be : "Father, I have fin- 
ished the work which Thou gavest me to do" ? 

It sometimes pleases the Almighty and In- 
scrutable Providence to send us adversity. "Ye 
now have sorrow," said Christ, "but I will see you 
again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy 
no man taketh from you." Yes, when God's chil- 
dren pass under the shadow of the Cross of Cal- 
vary, they know that, through that shadow, lies 
their passage to the great White Throne. For 
them Gethsemane is as Paradise. God fills it 
with sacred presences ; its solemn silence is broken 
by the music of tender promises; its awful dark- 
ness softened and brightened by the sunlight of 
heavenly faces and the music of angelic wings. 



6 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



Before I close, let me urge upon you the prac- 
tical significance of the text. Many an occasion 
reminds us that we have not forever in which to 
act. This 'life is but an isthmus between two 
vast eternities." It can not be that the text is 
meant only for a sentiment or creed. If so, its 
flowery poetry will fade and die, and it will lose 
its hold upon the human heart. It was not so 
meant by him who was once a shepherd boy. If 
all those to whom these words were once a comfort 
could speak to us now, that would not be the mean- 
ing. But, to make these words of living and en- 
during beauty, we must bow to the divine will 
here, and not only acknowledge that everlasting 
Bock, but arise and lead on to it now. And 
when all else fails, that will be the Bock that 
standeth sure. 



THE UNKNOWN GOD 



Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and 
said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things 
ye are too superstitious. Or, what is a better transla- 
tion, I perceive that in all things ye are very reli- 
gious. Or, as the revised version has it, somewhat 
religious (Acts xvii:22). 



had grown up for centuries, and were moulded into 
all that had been sacred to their memories ; a 
religion which had taken such hold as to be inter- 
woven in their fine arts, sculpture, painting, and 
poetry; a religion which was born and bred in 
them. To replace such a religion with the religion 
of Christ, must have seemed as hazardous to the 
life of its advocates as the new philosophy of 
Socrates proved to him some hundreds of years 
before, within the same city walls. It was het- 
erodoxy to introduce a strange religion — even the 




T must have been a tremendous task 
to introduce Christianity into Athens 
in a speech in the days of Paul, 
where science and art and philosophy 



8 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



Christian religion. Paul was alone on Mars Hill, 
as far as Christians were concerned. There was 
nothing at hand, nothing in sight but what seemed 
to speak of heathenism. 

But St. Paul had some advantages, and he was 
not slow to improve them. One was the weakness 
of the religion of his audience. Here is where 
St. Paul made the first stroke of his rhetoric. 
The Athenians were not fully satisfied that they 
had all there was of religion. They had many- 
gods; but the very fact of their multitude sug- 
gested the idea that there might be still more. 
Therefore, just as we have All Saints' Day, so 
as to be sure that we celebrate the memory of them 
all, just so did the Athenians make a wise provi- 
sion for remembering all the gods by raising an 
altar to one unknown, if perchance there should 
be one. It was a sort of All Saints' Day for the 
Greeks. It was at this point that St. Paul made 
the first point in his masterful oratory. He had 
a God to tell them of, that was worthy of that 
altar. St. Paul had another advantage. He was 
a new man, and was telling them something new. 
And that w T as just what they desired; "For all the 
Athenians, and the strangers which were there, 
spent their time in nothing else but either to tell 
or to hear some new thing." 

Still another advantage. The Athenians were 



THE UNKNOWN GOD 



9 



all religious, very religious, says St. Paul. So he 
did not have to make them religious, or put re- 
ligion into them, nor did they have to get religion. 
All that St. Paul had to do was to guide that re- 
ligion in the right direction which had already 
developed. Here is another advantage — and St. 
Paul did not leave one of them unimproved — 
after telling them they were religious he did not 
have to say that their religion was all wrong. He 
did not have to tell them that they must give up 
all the religion they had, and adopt his, the true 
religion, but he said, Go on with your worship, 
and I will assist you in it. 

There are only two thoughts which I wish to 
bring from Mars Hill this morning; and I wish 
to bring them home with all the force they can 
bear. They will be of priceless value in assisting 
to mould the thought of this century. I will state 
my thought in two categorical propositions : First, 
every man is a religious being. Second, all re- 
ligion is good, if properly directed. Xow if these 
propositions be true, which I shall endeavor to 
show, they are of inestimable worth. If they are 
not true, then much of the religious teaching is not 
true. Xow we make a great mistake when we say 
of anyone, He is not religious, because everybody 
is religious. In our overwhelming zeal for the 
advancement of Christianity, we often make the 



10 



MINING TOW N SERMONS 



most fatal mistakes; mistakes which tell against 
us more, sometimes, than our zeal and labor tell 
for us. Now I believe that every man is religious 
by nature. I believe he is born a religious being, 
just as much as he is born a rational being. And 
it would be just as true to say of one man, He has 
no reason, as to say of another, He has no religion. 
A man may say he has no religion ; but we do not 
go by what is said, but by what is more in accord- 
ance with the truth. To say that a man gets 
religion, is not correct; because everybody has it. 
I have never heard of a nation on this earth which 
is not a religious nation — never ! I have yet to 
hear of the man in this world who has no religion. 

In lands the most remote, and in tribes the 
most barbarous and low, is found the spark of 
religion, which often lives and burns to cheer when 
other powers are left to inevitable obscurity and 
decay. We cannot find a man in this civilized 
land who is not religious. I have not been able 
to find one in the mining camps, hid away in the 
Rocky mountains. Dr. Livingstone, in all his 
travels in the wilds of Africa, never found such 
a man. We cannot, in all the histories of the 
world, find the record of such a man. When St. 
Paul arrived in Athens he found an altar erected 
to an unknown God, and that was the nearest he 
could find to Christianity. Yet he told those 



THE UNKNOWN GOD 



11 



Athenians that they were somewhat religious, even 
very religious. Now we should bear in mind that, 
wherever we go, in Christian or heathen lands, 
Ave shall find the people religious, so that we can 
say with St. Paul, I perceive that ye are some- 
what religious. Some of our best Christian peo- 
ple completely ruin the best argument for Chris- 
tianity here by not observing this truth; by say- 
ing, You must get religion, when everybody has it ; 
when it is a universal power; and all that Chris- 
tianity has to do with it is to develop it, and to 
guide it to its highest aims and possibilities. 

Religion is as universal as reason and the 
human race. It is a universal power which must 
assert itself, either through Christianity or some 
form of heathenism. You may say you will have 
Christianity or no Christianity; then the question 
will be between Christianity and some other out- 
ward manifestation of religion. But you cannot 
say that you will not have religion; you may as 
well say that you will blot out reason, imagination, 
and memory, from the face of the earth. Now 
there is a stronger foundation for Christianity, 
and a greater reason for its existence, than is 
often dreamed of. Religion is universal, and 
Christianity is its highest guide. There is no 
question about religion. We are religious, and 
we can't help ourselves. There is only this ques- 



12 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



tion about Christianity : Christianity or some form 
of heathenism ; which will you have ? 

Now I conceive this to be the truth: all re- 
ligion is good, provided it be properly directed and 
guided. And this I believe will aid us to arrive 
at a deep truth much overlooked at the present day. 
How do you suppose our missionaries proceed in 
foreign lands, and in our missionary fields on the 
frontier — or at home, for that matter ? What do 
they do but say, You are wrong ; you must give up 
your religion and belief, and come to ours, which 
is the true faith and the only way to salvation? 
Now I desire to place before you the example of 
two of the greatest missionaries the world has ever 
beheld: St. Paul and St. Ansgarius. And what 
did they do ? St. Paul goes to Athens, and finds 
there the heathen religion in full development. 
What did he tell them % Did he say, Your religion 
is all wrong and my religion is all right? No; 
that is what we would have said had we been there. 
Did he say, You cannot be saved unless you give 
up your heathen practices, and embrace our faith ? 
No, that is what we would have said. St. Paul 
said, You have built an altar here to the unknown 
God. Now you do not know Him ; let me tell you 
all about Him. 

Here you see Christianity in its true position 
guiding and directing religion. 



THE UNKNOWN GOD 



13 



Early in the centuries, when northern Europe 
became Christianized, there was one missionary 
more powerful than all the rest because he evi- 
dently believed and worked on the principle that 
Christianity was to be the guide of all religions. 
St. Ansgarius was a pioneer; he advanced where 
others of his comrades had not gone before. It 
was in the dead of winter when he found the na- 
tives of the Xorth engaged in some great heathen 
festival. This was all wrong; this was supersti- 
tion, they must give up these heathen practices 
and adopt our religion, the true Christian religion, 
to be saved. That is what we would have said 
had we been there. J^ot so with St. Ansgarius. 
He was too much of a St. Paul. It seemed they 
kept up the festival day after day. St. Ansgarius 
learned the name of the festival. They called it 
"Yule." Had we been there we should have repu- 
diated that heathen name. But, says St. Ansgarius, 
the name is all right — call it "Yule !" The time of 
the year is all right, only place it a few days earlier 
so as to make it fall on the twenty-fifth of Decem- 
ber. The festival in itself is all right, only let the 
object of it be Christ. And they did so, keeping 
up their annual festivities. Like St. Paul, he 
corrected the object of worship. And Yule is to- 
day the old English name for Christmas. This, 
then, is the lesson which we learn from the great 



14 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



Apostles, that there is a universal truth in all 
religion ; that heathen religions are to be corrected 
and guided, rather than overturned; that we all 
ought to have as much forbearance and charity 
for one another as St. Paul had for the Athenians, 
and Ansgarius had for the people of the Xorth; 
that, rather than deny the truth of our neighbor's 
religion, we should endeavor to find the truth that 
lies somewhere within his view with this assur- 
ance: that he must be somewhat religious, and he 
may have an altar to the God unknown. 



KNOCKING 



Behold, I stand at the door, and 'knock; if any man 
hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to 
him, and will sup with him, and he with Me (Rev. 



opened unto you." 

Now, this is exactly what we might expect of 
a gracious God, and especially of an all-merciful 
Saviour. But who would ever imagine that this 
process should be inverted, and that, besides a 
sinner knocking at the door of the kingdom of 
heaven in fervent supplication, the Son of God 
Himself should come and knock at the door of the 
sinner's heart, soliciting admittance there? Yet 
this is the representation given us in the text. 

This figure of Christ standing at the door and 
knocking is one of the most impressive in the 
Bible. All the figures and pictures in the Bible 
were drawn from the fields of nature, and from 



iii:20). 




UB Blessed Lord, in His Sermon 
on the Mount, says: "Ask, and it 
shall be given you; seek, and ye 
shall find; knock, and it shall be 



16 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



the incidents of human life, and so was this 
"knocking at the door." ^Yhen this book of Reve- 
lation was written, men used to knock at the door 
for admission. They undoubtedly had in mind a 
man knocking at his friend's door with good news, 
with riches and happiness, or a loving father seek- 
ing an erring child. Such an incident I read of 
in a church paper took place in Philadelphia not 
many years ago. It is a repetition of the old 
story, but it shows us so vividly how Jesus seeks 
His erring children. At a house in Philadelphia 
a young woman would appear at one of the win- 
dows, and sit for hours with the blinds half closed. 
She seemed lonely and unhappy. It appeared as 
if she were a sort of prisoner there, and would be 
glad to get away. One day, while she was occu- 
pying her usual seat in all her loneliness, a car- 
riage drove to the door. An old man with silvery 
locks stepped out and knocked. She looked down 
upon him and trembled and turned pale, but she 
did not move. The blinds were turned so that 
the man at the door could not see her, and, think- 
ing that he was not heard, he continued to knock 
until he aroused the neighbors, and they began to 
look out to see what was the matter. Yet that 
beautiful woman in the parlor-chamber sat rigid 
as a statue. The knocking seemed to trouble her, 
but she would not respond. The old man re- 



KNOCKING 



17 



entered his carriage and drove away. After a 
while the same carriage stopped at that door; the 
same old man ascended the steps and knocked ; 
the same beautiful, but sad, pale face, appeared 
behind the lattice. She listened as before, and 
watched every movement, but did not open the 
door, or send a servant to open it. Later in the 
day he came a third time, but with no better suc- 
cess. He seemed to suspect that he was refused 
admission because the lady did not wish to see 
him, for, as he turned away, he cried loud enough 
to be heard, across the street : "Oh, Emily, my 
daughter, my poor, dear daughter!" Yet Emily 
moved not, but sat in the same place as if spell- 
bound, long after the carriage had driven away. 

?s T ow that old man had come a long journey 
to find his erring child. By patient inquiry he 
had learned where she was. He waited till her 
betrayer had gone out, and she was alone. Then 
he went, hoping to persuade her to return home. 
But pride and worldly pleasure were stronger 
than filial love. She knew that only one motive 
could have brought her venerable father there. 
She knew that she ought to be grateful to him, 
and return home an obedient daughter; but she 
would not even speak to him. She sat and watched 
him knocking, knocking, without a movement of 
relenting. She heard the final cry that came as 



18 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



from a broken heart. Yet she let him go away, 
without a word or look of recognition. 

How like her in her gilded misery, in her 
cruelty and folly are all who reject the Saviour! 
He comes with claims upon them holier than those 
of any human parent. He comes with a love 
deeper and purer than that of any human heart. 
He comes, not only to save them from sin and 
sorrow, but to enrich them with immortal blessed- 
ness and glory. And yet they listen to His knock- 
ing as that woman did. They do not want Him to 
come in. If He does, the idols enshrined there 
will have to be expelled, and the heart made the 
temple of the Holy Ghost. Such is the patient, 
persistent love of the Saviour. He sends His 
servants to call men to repentance. He pleads with 
them from the cross, and pleads for them in the 
midst of the throne. But this does not satisfy 
the love and longing of His heart. He comes to 
each individual sinner. He comes again and 
again. And yet how few respond to the lowly 
wooing of His love ! Some will say, perhaps, "He 
never really came and knocked at the door of my 
heart!" But do you not remember times when a 
sudden solemnity overshadowed your spirit in the 
midst of gaiety and folly \ Do you not remember 
when some verse, or sacred song, or sermon, 



KNOCKING 



19 



thrilled you? Have you never been wakened by 
terror, or softened by affliction ? In all these cases, 
and in others like them, Christ was knocking. 
The hand, scarred by the nails on Calvary, was 
trying to make you hear and heed. There He 
stood beside you in your business hours, by the 
fireside, in the sanctuary, in the cemetery, saying, 
"I am here to save you." But you did not listen 
to His voice ; you hastened to drown it in the din 
of the world. 

But Christians who ought to know the Sa- 
viour's voice often keep Him standing at the door. 
They hear a knock, but do not realize that it is 
His. They are like a certain poor widow. Her 
minister heard that she was in great trouble be- 
cause she could not pay her rent. The landlord 
threatened to throw her and all she had into the 
street. The minister collected from some friends 
the amount due, and went to the widow's house, 
thinking how happy his visit would make her. 
He knocked ; no one came to the door ; he knocked 
again, all was still. He tried the door; it was 
fastened. He concluded that his parishioner was 
not at home, and went away. Meeting her the 
next day he told her of his unsuccessful visit. 
"Oh, dear me," she replied, "was it you that 
knocked so long ? I was in the house all the time, 



20 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



but I thought it was the landlord, so I kept as 
still as a mouse. " 

When Christ comes to the door of the heart. 
His knock may be sickness, bereavement, or some 
disappointment in business. He sends trials to 
wean us from other objects of trust and love, and 
lead us to seek our real joy in Him. We shall 
never know in this world how often Christ has 
stood at the door and knocked. Every providence 
that tends to remind us of human frailty, or of 
the insufficiency of worldly good, is a fresh invita- 
tion from Him to open the door, that we may be 
filled with His joy and peace. How sad it is that 
we do not understand God's way for making us 
happy ! But we shut ourselves up as if an enemy 
were trying to come in, as if pain and sorrow were 
His summons who is waiting to make us happier 
in the night of affliction than we were in the bright- 
est day of prosperity. 

You all know something of this knocking at 
the door. Be not satisfied with the intercourse 
that you have yet had with your Lord and Saviour. 
Remember, it matters not how unworthy any man 
may be; if he had all the sins of Manasseh him- 
self upon his soul, the mercy here offered should 
be imparted to him. We are told of Manasseh 
that he filled Jerusalem with the blood of inno- 
cents, and made the people worse than the heathen 



KNOCKING 



21 



whom the Lord had destroyed before them. Yet 
when he humbled himself, God heard his suppli- 
cation, and made Himself known to him under the 
endearing character of Israel's God. We may 
therefore expect from the Saviour such an abund- 
ance of grace and mercy and peace as shall be a 
foretaste of heaven itself, provided we only hum- 
ble ourselves, and open the door and let Him in. 
Then our feast with the Saviour here will be only 
a prelude to that richer feast above, the marriage 
supper of the Lamb, to be enjoyed for evermore. 



NO ROOM 



There was no room for them in the inn (St. Luke 
ii:7). 

jSTCIENT prophets were prophesying 
of the coming of the Messiah. The 
world was expecting it. Certain 
events should be the signs of His 
coming, and certain circumstances the auspicious 
time. Though Judea was now nominally a king- 
dom under Herod, yet Herod was a vassal of 
Augustus; and Herod's subjects took an oath of 
allegiance to Augustus, perhaps when this regis- 
tration was made, for which Joseph and Mary 
took the far journey from Galilee to Bethlehem. 
This registration was ordered by the Roman Em- 
peror. War with Eastern Empires had ended in 
universal peace. Rome was now the world, and 
it could well say that all the world should be taxed. 
The time was come for the Messiah's birth because 
it could be said that the world was now subject 
to the Roman, or Fourth Monarchy, according to 
the prophecy of Daniel (Dan. ii : 44). 

The time was very seasonable for the coming 
of the Prince of Peace, now that Augustus ruled 




NO ROOM 



23 



the world. The sceptre was now departed from 
Judah, for this was the first registration under 
Borne, and we are told in Gen. xlix : 10, that the 
sceptre should not depart from Judah until Shiloh 
come. Kome, the world, was now performing the 
will of God, and fulfilling prophecy in bringing 
Mary to Bethlehem, which goes to prove her divine 
Son to be the Christ. "But thou, Bethlehem 
Ephratah," says the prophet Micah, "though thou 
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out 
of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be 
ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from 
of old, from everlasting." 

According to prophetic language, the Saviour 
was to be born in Bethlehem. One mile from that 
village is a little plain in which now stands a rude 
chapel, built over the traditional spot where there 
were shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by 
night, when lo, the angel of the Lord came upon 
them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about 
them, and to their happy ears were uttered the 
good tidings of great joy, that unto them was born 
that day in the city of David a Saviour, which 
was Christ the Lord. 

The associations of our Lord's nativity were 
all of the humblest character, and the very scenery 
of His birth-place was connected with memories 
of poverty and toil; a circumstance which should 



24 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



make the humblest dweller upon this earth take 
heart, and endeavor to rise by the power of Him 
whose early life upon this earth we now com- 
memorate. 

In obedience to the commands of Caesar 
Augustus at Rome, Joseph and Mary leave their 
humble home in Nazareth on a journey of seventy 
miles or more, to the city of their fathers. Though 
fallen as was their temporal fortune, they were 
of David's royal race, and the village of Bethle- 
hem was once the home of their great ancestor 
while, as a shepherd boy, he w T as watching his 
flocks upon the surrounding hills. 

It is difficult for us in this distant age, and 
this far land, to form a correct idea of the cus- 
toms of those times. The inn of the village was 
probably then, as in modern Palestine, a low struc- 
ture, consisting of a square enclosure, in which the 
cattle could be fastened for the night, and a raised 
floor or pavement, or a series of them, where trav- 
elers might spread their mats, recline at meals, 
and find a resting place at night. Devoid of com- 
fort as such arrangements were, they w T ere eagerly 
sought, and on great public occasions all could not 
be accommodated. Other travelers had easily 
passed the poor peasants on the way, and when, 
after toiling up the steep hillside, they reached 
the inn, they found every part of it already full. 



NO ROOM 



25 



"There was no room for them in the inn." So 
the next best place for them was the stable, in- 
stead of the open and adjoining inn. 

We can picture for ourselves the gatekeeper 
of Bethlehem shaking his head when Joseph and 
Mary passed in on that memorable evening, as if 
to say, "No room for such as you; the rich and 
great have gone in before you, and you must find 
shelter where you can." 

Whoever those persons may have been who 
turned so coldly and selfishly away from Joseph 
and Mary on that memorable December night, 
although they could not help seeing that they were 
cold, hungry and weary, yet we must say this for 
them : that they did not know what privileges, and 
blessings, and happiness, they lost by thus coldly 
treating, and thus unmercifully neglecting, the 
Son of the Highest when He came in the greatest 
humility to visit this distant world. 

Xow that these events are made facts of his- 
tory, we readily see them in their true light ; and 
many well-disposed Christians have said, "Had 
we been dwellers in Bethlehem on that first Christ- 
mas Eve, Joseph and Mary should have shared 
with us in all we could offer ; our roof should have 
covered them, they should have been fed from our 
table, and warmed from our hearth.*" 

We may be perfectly sincere in supposing that 



26 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



we should have been very kind and hospitable to 
this humble family from Galilee, but, before we 
settle it in our minds that we should assuredly 
have done so, it will be quite as well to test our- 
selves in a plain matter-of-fact w r ay. 

There is such a thing, even now, as having no 
room for Christ, and treating Him with as much 
indifference and contempt as if the door of a com- 
fortable inn had been rudely closed against Him, 
and obliged Him to take refuge in a stable. Here 
is one devoted to Christ by the solemn vows of 
baptism and confirmation, w 7 ho has no time to 
breathe a prayer publicly or privately, or attend 
to the wants of his immortal soul. He may not 
always be neglectful of his duties ; but he lets 
them go by with the coldest indifference if he 
happens to be in unusual haste to get to his place 
of business, or if he reaches home weary at night. 
He can find time, and make time, for almost all 
things else; but, unless perfectly convenient to 
himself, he has no room for his Saviour. 

This is the man who does not come to the 
House of God, and w r ho does not obey the voice of 
Him who said, a Do this in remembrance of Me," 
just because his business is such ; and, worse than 
all, may not encourage his family to follow the 
example of Christ and His apostles in the break- 
ing of bread and of prayer. And then again, the 



NO ROOM 



27 



wife may not do what she can in giving encour- 
agement in Christ's work. Can there be room for 
Jesus in that house ? Would they not have turned 
away from Joseph and Mary, had they come toil- 
worn and fainting to their door ? Aye, it would 
have caused them little concern had this refusal 
of hospitality to the poor strangers left the Holy 
child Jesus to be cradled in a manger. Again, in 
support of His Church (in money matters), how 
many Christians are acting the part of the thought- 
less people of Bethlehem, w T hen the inn was closed 
against those who so greatly needed its shelter? 
And how many, when the Lord Jesus comes to 
them in the person of His ministers, and claims 
a share for the work of His Kingdom, leave His 
servants to make brick when no straw is provided ? 

Multitudes of young persons who were conse- 
crated to God in infancy, who may or may not 
have renewed their Baptismal vows in Confirma- 
tion, have no room for Jesus in their hearts, neg- 
lecting to obey His dying request to partake of 
the Holy Communion, and who are living as un- 
mindful of their obligations and privileges as if 
He had no claim upon them, and they were ex- 
pecting no favors at His hands. 

Is Jesus, who brought so much happiness into 
the world, such an intruder upon our joys, and 
is the thought of Him such a damper upon the 



28 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



mind of youth, that, in the happy hours of early 
life no room should be found for Him ? Ah ! 
beloved, whether you be young or old, how shall 
you face Him in heaven for whom you found no 
room on earth ? Iso room for Christ Jesus the 
only Saviour ! In a moment, when you least ex- 
pect it, it may be, the door of eternity will swing 
open, and unseen messengers of the Most High 
will lead you in. One of two receptions awaits 
you : one of glory, or one of darkness. It may be 
some very small neglect (as you account such 
things) will settle your future lot. 

Oh, if we could only see what Jesus requires 
of us, and how it would ensure our future well- 
being for time and for eternity ! And the room 
that we could give up to Jesus, here and now, 
would be of more value to us than the same room 
filled with gold and silver. 

"O Jesus, Thou art pleading 
In accents meek and low, 
'I died for you, My children. 
And will ye treat Me so?' 

"O Lord with shame and sorrow 
We open now the door; 
Dear Saviour, enter, enter, 
And leave us nevermore!" 



SHALL SEE THE KING 



Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty; they 
shall behold the land that is very far off (Isaiah 
xxxiii : 17). 



at this season. The very chill and cold which now 
come foretell the last dreary days of the world. 
The year is worn out; spring, summer, and au- 
tumn have in turn brought their gifts and done 
their utmost; but they are over, and the end is 
come. All is past and gone; all has failed. We 
are tired of the past ; we would not have the sea- 
sons longer; and the austere weather which suc- 
ceeds, though ungrateful to the body, perhaps, is 
in tone with our feelings, and is acceptable. Such 
is the frame of mind which befits the closing of 
the Christian year; and such is the frame of mind 
which conies alike to good and bad at the end of 
life. The days have come in which they have no 
pleasure, yet they would hardly be young again. 




EAR after year, as it passes, brings 
us the same warnings again and again, 
and none perhaps more impressive 
than those with which it comes to us 



30 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



even could they be so by wishing it. Life is well 
enough in its way, but it does not fully satisfy. 
Thus the soul is cast forward upon the future, 
and, in proportion as its conscience is clear, and 
its perception keen and true, does it rejoice sol- 
emnly that "the night is far spent, the day is at 
hand," that there are "new heavens and a new 
earth" to come, that we "shall," after this life has 
ended, "see the king in His beauty," and "behold 
the land that is very far off." These are feelings 
for holy men in winter and in age, waiting, in 
some dejection perhaps, but with comfort on the 
whole, and calmly, though earnestly, for the advent 
of Christ. 

And such too are the feelings with which we 
now come before Him in prayer. The season 
is chill and cold, and the worshippers are few; 
but all this befits those who are by profession peni- 
tents and mourners, watchers and pilgrims; more 
dear to them the loneliness, more cheerful the se- 
verity and more bright the gloom, than all the 
pleasures and luxuries of earth. True faith does 
not covet earthly comforts ; it only complains when 
it is forbidden to kneel. Its only hardship is to 
be hindered, or to be ridiculed, when it would 
place itself as a sinner before its Judge. One 
year goes and then another, but the same warnings 



SHALL SEE THE KING 



31 



recur. The frost or the snow comes again, the 
earth is stripped of its brightness, and then amid 
the unprofitableness of earth and sky, the well- 
known words return, bidding us to prepare to meet 
our God. Oh, blessed they who obey these warn- 
ing voices and look out for Him whom they love, 
but have not seen. At present we are in a world 
of shadows. What we see is not substantial. 
Suddenly this world will be rent in twain and 
vanish away, at any rate, as far as we are con- 
cerned, and our Maker will appear. He will look 
on us while we look on Him. "When the Son of 
man shall come in His glory, and all the holy 
angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the 
throne of His glory; and before Him shall be 
gathered all nations; and He shall separate them 
one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep 
from the goats" (St. Matt, xxvi: 31-32). 

Such is our first meeting with our God, and 
it will be as unexpected as it is intimate. "Your- 
selves know perfectly," says St. Paul, "that the 
day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 
For when they shall say peace and safety, then 
sudden destruction cometh upon them." This is 
said of the wicked. Elsewhere He is said to sur- 
prise the good as well as the bad. While the 
Bridegroom tarried, the wise and foolish virgins 
"all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; 
go ye out to meet Him." 

But is this all that we are told, all that is 
allowed us or done for us ? Do we know only this, 
that all is dark now, and all will be light then? 
That now God is hidden, and one day will be re- 
vealed ? That we are in a world of sense, and 
are to be in a world of spirits ? For surely it is 
j)lain wisdom to prepare for this great change, 
and if so, are any directions, hints or rules, given 
us how we are to prepare ? "Prepare to meet thy 
God." "Go ye out to meet Him," is the dictate 
of natural reason as well as of inspiration. But 
how is that to be ? 

May there not be a gradual preparation of the 
soul for His presence, just as the bodily eye must 
be exercised to bear the full light of day ? At any 
rate, Scripture tells us that the Gospel covenant 
is intended to prepare us for this future, glorious 
and wonderful destiny, the sight of God, a destiny 
which, if not most glorious, will be most terrible. 
And in the worship and service of Almighty God 
which Christ and His apostles have left to us, we 
have means of approaching God, and gradually 
learning to bear the sight, that beatific vision. 

This is indeed the most momentous reason for 
religious worship. We are one day to change our 
being. ^Ve are not to be here forever. Direct 



SHALL SEE THE KING 



33 



intercourse with God, in prayer and sacramental 
communion, may be necessary in some incompre- 
hensible way to prepare our very nature to bear 
the sight of God. 

Let us take this view of religious service: it is 
"going out to meet the Bridegroom/' who, if not 
seen in His beauty, will appear in consuming fire. 
Besides other momentous reasons, it is a prepara- 
tion for an awful event which shall one day be. 
What it would be to meet Christ at once without 
preparation, we may learn from what happened 
to the apostles when His glory was suddenly man- 
ifested to them. St. Peter said, "Depart from 
me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." And St. 
John, when he saw Him, "fell at His feet as 
dead." 

Such, then, is the spirit in which w T e should 
come to His ordinances and sacraments, consider- 
ing them as first-fruits of that sight of Him which 
one day must be. When we kneel down in prayer 
let us think to ourselves, Thus shall I one day kneel 
down before His very footstool, though spiritual, 
and He will be seated over against me. I come 
with the thought of that awful hour before me. 
I come to confess my sin to Him now, that Lie 
may pardon it then. And I say, O Lord, Holy, 
and Immortal in heaven, in the hour of death, and 
in the day of judgment, Good Lord, deliver us. 



THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF 
THE TRUTH 



The Church . . . the pillar and ground of the 
truth (I. Tim. iii: 15). 



Apostolic days, because of the wickedness of the 
world, and then it was restored again to Joseph 
Smith in the last century. I said, that was ab- 
surd. How would you withdraw good news after 
you had once sent it out, and it had been received 
by the people ? I did not see how it could be done. 
I said, the only way I could see was to deny the 
truth of that news, and say that it was not so. 
How are you otherwise going to withdraw the 
Gospel or any other good news from the people ? 
If such a thing were true, it would not be an ever- 
lasting Gospel. Now, I said, if you want to hear 
the everlasting Gospel, come here. It was never 
taken away from us. We have had it all the time. 




HE Mormons talk about the Everlast- 
ing Gospel. They say this Gospel 
was withdrawn from the world by 
the Almighty very soon after the 



THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH 35 

Then I said : You say that the Everlasting Gospel 
was restored to Joseph Smith less than seventy- 
five years ago, and restored by our Lord Jesus 
Christ. I said, it was no such thing. You did 
not get the Gospel from our Lord Jesus Christ 
seventy-five years ago. You got it from us. You 
got it from this Church. You show me the Gos- 
pel that you read to your people, and I dare say 
it is the very identical Gospel that we have always 
had for nineteen hundred years. Did you not 
take the Book, the Gospel, and the Bible, bodily 
from this Church? I went to them and asked 
them : Is it not King James' version that you use ? 
And they said, Yes. I was going to take the 
Bible that they used in their state houses, and 
show them the Preface and prove that it was our 
version, our translation, our compilation. And 
they acknowledged that it was. Then said I, we 
restored the Gospel to you, or rather, you got the 
Gospel from us, the same Gospel that we always 
had. It may have been taken away from you, but 
it never was taken away from us. 

If it had not been for this great Church of 
ours, there would have been no Mormon Church, 
because they could not have gotten the Gospel. 
They could have taken the Boman Bible, or the 
Greek Bible, or the ancient manuscripts ; but then 



36 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



they could not have translated them. This Church 
of ours is the only Church that has so translated 
the Bible that modern civilization will accept 
it. So the Mormon Church takes it, and tells her 
people that they got it from heaven; even when 
the fly-leaf tells them that they got it from this 
Church. That their own people cannot or do not 
see this, is one of the marvels. 

If it were not for this great Church of ours, 
there would be no Congregational church. If it 
were not for this great Church of ours, there would 
be no Campbellite church ; no Baptist church ; no 
Unitarian church. Perhaps you think that this 
Church to which we belong is only one of the de- 
nominations. Perhaps you think it is only one 
of the numerous or unnumbered sects. Perhaps 
you think it makes no difference to which Church 
you belong. Perhaps you think one church is 
just as good as another — of all these you see and 
hear about. If all the churches come here to get 
the Bible and to get the Gospel restored to them, 
why, there must be something to this Church. 
There must be something to this Church that you 
did not reckon on ; something that you did not take 
into account when you were thinking about the 
churches around you. If it were not for this 
Church of ours, there would be no Methodist 
church; no Universalist ; no Seventh Day Ad- 



THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH 37 

ventist church. If it were not for this Church 
there would be no Alexander Dowie church; no 
Wesleyan church, nor any other modern church; 
neither could any be started. How could there 
be ? They would not have any Bible if it were not 
for this Church. They would be left high and 
dry without any foundation. They would not 
have anything to start on. They surely would 
not go to the Roman Catholic Church for their 
Bible, or for anything else. And they could not 
translate the original manuscripts with any satis- 
faction to the people, or even to themselves. Kone 
of them ever translated the Bible. If they did, 
they could not sell it. They would not have it 
themselves. The Baptists were not quite satisfied 
with our Bible, so they made a translation them- 
selves, but nobody wanted it. They did not want 
it very long themselves; so they came back to the 
Bible of this Church. The lodges and secret so- 
cieties ought to appreciate where they got the 
Bible. 

Of all the churches in the world, therefore, this 
Church of ours stands solitary and alone as the 
only Church which has produced the word of God 
in such a form, such a scholarly form, such a fair, 
unbiased and unprejudiced form, as to make it 
generally and universally acceptable to the high- 



38 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



est modern civilization, and to the whitest and 
greatest race. 

The Roman Church is a Church not governed 
by the greatest and whitest race. That is the 
trouble with that Church. The Bible of this 
Church is about the only Bible that the people 
generally know anything about. And it is so 
universally acceptable that, whenever any ignorant 
fanatic wants to start a church on his own account, 
he immediately comes to get our Bible to build his 
church upon. And he is generally so ignorant 
that he does not even know who furnished it, but 
thinks that it came down from heaven, translated 
and all, including the binding and Russian leather. 

The Christian world outside of this Church 
avoids this question. They will tell you that it 
came from heaven, and they will tell you that it 
came from the Prophets, and Apostles, and Evan- 
gelists, and those who wrote the Bible. They will 
tell you it came from ancient manuscripts. They 
will even tell you who translated the Bible as in- 
dividuals; but it is too much for human nature, 
even for modern Christians, to acknowledge that 
this Church produced it. It is too much to expect. 
It is too great a thing. It places this Church too 
high. And then you must not expect that people 
know it, either. They are not taught it. And 
if they should question their leaders about how the 



THE PILLAR AXD GROUND OF THE TRUTH 39 



Bible came to them, they would often be told: 
"Oh, in a miraculous way God preserved it, and 
gave it to them." I do not expect more from the 
Christian world outside; but I do expect more 
from you, my friends, who are members of this 
Church, and members of this congregation. I 
do expect that you both know and appreciate the 
greatness and grandeur of this Church above every 
other in modern times; that it has done incom- 
parably more for modern civilization than any 
other church on earth; that its intelligence and 
influence according to numbers, and its close ad- 
herence to the Word of God, and for a zealous 
guardianship of that Word, are beyond compare. 

It is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar 
and Ground of the Truth. 



GOD WITH MANY 



And, lo, 1 am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world (St. Matthew xxviii: 20). 

HIS was said to the eleven Apostles. 
It would have been said to twelve had 
Judas Iscariot been there. There is 
a grand lesson to be learned here, that 
the Almighty never lodged the truth with one 
man, one prophet, or one Apostle. He lodged it 
with the eleven Apostles, with five hundred breth- 
ren at once, with a cloud of witnesses. There 
never was a time when a prophet did not go wrong ; 
therefore the Almighty never built His Church 
or His truth upon a single prophet. Nobody ever 
thought that the truth lay with a single prophet of 
old. It never lay with the prophet Isaiah, or 
Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, or Daniel, alone. It lay with 
all of them, from Genesis to Malachi. And so it 
is to-day. There is no monopoly of truth any- 
where, by any church, or by any man or prophet, 
high priest or priestess. Christ gave His truth 
to the great body of His Apostles, the great body 
of His disciples, the great body composing His 




GOD WITH MANY 



41 



Church. And if that Church is like a mustard 
seed, which is the smallest of the seeds, and grows 
to a great tree, it is not likely that the eleven 
Apostles and five hundred brethren had grown in 
nineteen hundred years to be only one man, or 
one prophet or prophetess. That would be grow- 
ing the wrong way. That is contrary to the very 
word of God. It must have grown in the nineteen 
hundred years to something like a nation or king- 
dom. We must be able to find the truth almost 
everywhere where the report of the Gospel has 
spread. 

If the truth were to be lodged with one man at 
any time, it would seem that that time should be 
when Christ Himself was upon earth, when the 
greatest evidence could be had from heaven. But 
no. It was so important that we must have many 
witnesses, even then. One witness would never do. 
This one-man and one-prophet idea is the idea of 
error. This must be plain to every one who reads 
history, and can read it understandingly. It is 
the error of the Mohammedans, whose watchword 
is: "There is but one God, and Mohammed is 
His prophet/' It is the error of Mormonism, 
which claims, "There is but one Gocl, and Joseph 
Smith is His prophet." So you can go on all the 
way down the line, and pick out this gigantic error. 



42 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



And when you go into the heathen religions, you 
find the same error; the same one man bearing 
witness of himself that he is the prophet of God ; 
Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster and all, each bear- 
ing witness to himself. You never find this one- 
man witness of himself in the Bible. And that 
is the way we may know the truth. Religious 
people will follow one man. They will follow a 
Luther, or a Calvin, or a Campbell, or a Knox, 
or a Wesley, or a Smith, or a Pope, and think 
they have all the truth, the only man and the only 
way. But you never find anything of that kind 
in the Bible. You will always find the disciples 
in the world in greatly increasing numbers, to 
whom our Lord said, "I am with you alway ; even 
unto the end of the world." 

Sometimes we have an age of unbelief, and 
then, again, we have an age of credulity. Some- 
times people believe too much; sometimes they 
believe on insufficient evidence. The Bible which 
says, "believe," says also, "prove all things" ; and 
one command is as important as the other. When- 
ever a man starts a religion, it is to him the only 
religion in the world, the only truth; and this 
continues as long as the swaddling clothes of baby- 
hood are wrapped about it. When the religion 
gets to any respectable age, then it endeavors to 
obtain recognition from other religious bodies 



GOD WITH MANY 



43 



which it would not recognize before; and it feels 
very much hurt if it is not admitted and recognized 
at once. Such is the history of them all. Every 
independent religious movement would not recog- 
nize any other at first, until it arrived at the age 
of some sense, reason, and discretion; then it 
wanted to be recognized by those whom it would 
not recognize before. 

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, 
would not recognize any other church. He had 
the only church. They preach that yet. Still, 
their common sense and reason have gotten the bet- 
ter of their doctrines, because they felt very much 
put out when they were refused admittance to the 
World's Fair Religions. Why should they feel 
outraged when they were the only church? If 
theirs is the only church, why do they want to 
mix up with the bad religions of the world ? Why 
do they not accept their own logic ? But there is 
one grand and glorious thing about this question, 
and that is, that whenever any one of these religions 
has lived long enough, it learns that it was at first 
mistaken; that it was not the only religion. If 
the leaders will not acknowledge that, the great 
body of the intelligent membership will. Every 
religion will find its true place in time. And the 
truth will be found to be, not with the single 
prophet and his followers, but with the great body 



44 



.MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



of Christ, the Apostles, the disciples, the brethren 
from the beginning of the world to the end of time. 

Now suppose we ask Christian people which 
is the true church ? J oseph Smith said he had a 
revelation that none of them was right; so he 
started the true church! Of course, he said he 
had a revelation from God to do it. Everybody 
has that. JSTow suppose we go out to some good 
business man of the world. I dare say he will 
give a better answer to our question. He will 
probably be annoyed at our question at first, be- 
cause he knows how narrow the Christian answer 
often is. The man of the world, if he is a good 
man, will probably say that there is truth in all 
of them. And I believe that answer is more in 
accordance with the Word of God than the answer 
that w r e often hear from the Christian. People 
of the churches dwell on differences; the man of 
the world on agreements. The man of the world 
is right. The Christian says : See how we differ. 
We say : See how we agree. When we decide on 
differences we decide with one party, one prophet, 
one sect. But when we decide on agreements we 
decide with all. That is the ground to take, the 
platform on which to stand. Truth is that which 
is found everywhere. Truth is that which is uni- 
versal, and held by everybody in the kingdom of 



GOD WITH MANY 



45 



God. The great answer then to this great ques- 
tion is as the man of the world would give it, and 
gives it so often. All are right. We are only 
wrong when we differ. The great mistake of the 
past has been to build on differences, when we 
should have built on agreements, on what is uni- 
versal, on what everybody believes everywhere. 
That is the truth ; that cannot be error. Error is 
never universal, never held by everybody in all 
places. 

What we want, then, and what we ought to 
have, are the men of the world, the business men ; 
we want them in the Church ; these men who have 
been so enlightened, no doubt by Christianity it- 
self, that they give a better answer to these great 
questions than those who are already in the Church. 
We want them in the Church, in the kingdom, to 
teach these very principles which they know so 
well, even better than the Christians. We need 
you men of the world, men of business; we need 
you in the Church for the sake of the truth; for 
the sake of the truth you teach so well now. We 
need that truth taught in the kingdom. You are 
not far from the kingdom of heaven. We need 
your influence this way for the sake of your chil- 
dren, your families, your friends ; for the sake of 
our city, our community, our commonwealth and 



4G 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



country. We need you for the sake of the boys 
and men that go wrong, and the girls that need 
protection. We need you for the sake of the world, 
which needs your good advice and rare wisdom. 



THE SPIRIT OF GOD 



And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters (Gen. i : 2). 



mony and order out of chaos, before man in- 
habited the earth. He moves now for the same 
purpose, where man moves. There is not a suffi- 
cient recognition among Christian people of the 
fact, the stupendous fact, that the Spirit of God 
moves among men on the face of the earth. 

Perhaps we are willing to admit that the Al- 
mighty led the children of Israel from the dark- 
ness of Egypt to the light of Canaan — from bond- 
age to freedom. Perhaps we are willing to admit 
that visions of heaven led wise men from the East 
to the great Liberator of the world, the Saviour. 
Perhaps we admit, too, that the Spirit led the 
liberty-loving people from the old world to the 
new. I think, too, that we will admit that the 
Great Spirit moved upon the waters of Manila 




F the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters then, He moves 
upon the face of the land and waters 
now. He moved, then, to form har- 



48 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



Bay, on that memorable May morning when Dewey 
appeared to wake up the world with the cannon's 
roar of freedom, and at Santiago, when men of 
Schley's fleet bowed their heads in prayer, while 
Spanish sailors slept beneath the deep. 

As you look upon the Angelus, that master- 
piece of art, you can almost hear the ringing, and 
the dying of the day, where peasants pause in 
labor and bow their heads in prayer ; do you doubt 
in that somber stillness, the silent coming of the 
night, the passage of the Spirit for the day ? Now 
as we believe that God's Spirit moves with men 
heroic and with deeds historic, He has told us of the 
opposite in His book, that He moves with humble 
men in little things, though less historic but not 
less heroic ; for the inanimate grass has His solici- 
tude and the little sparrow His care. You are of 
more value than grass or bird, therefore you have 
the abundance of His solicitude and care. The 
Spirit moves with you for peace, and order, and 
love, and guidance. You are not without the 
Spirit. There is no God-forsaken country. There 
may be a man-forsaken country; but God is 
everywhere, even upon the chaos of an uncreated 
earth. And when the first blade of grass ap- 
peared, and the first little tiny flower showed its 
petals to the sun, and the first little bird gasped 
for breath and food, God was there. Is He not 



THE SPIRIT OF GOD 



49 



here ? Is He only in very great things, and in 
very small things ? Are we, who are neither great 
nor small, are we left out by Him ? Is there no 
God with us ? i\o Spirit ? No Immanuel in the 
daily round of life? Hush! Stop! Listen! 
Learn ! and believe ! 

But you will say, perhaps, that you cannot be- 
lieve. Can you believe that the Spirit moved upon 
the waters before God created man? Do you be- 
lieve God was with Noah ? Do you believe He 
was with the Children of Israel ? Do you believe 
He w r as with this country in its struggle for free- 
dom? Do you believe He was with this country 
when it was rent in twain by internal strife ? Do 
you believe that God was with Dewey at Manila 
and Hobson and Schley at Santiago ? Do you be- 
lieve that God looks after the grass at your feet, 
and the bird on your house-top, and not after you ? 
God having a solicitude and care for all things 
else but you ? You and your life and affairs the 
only things in the world that God has nothing to 
do with ? There is no exception to the laws of 
nature, so I am told by scientists ; and I have yet 
to learn that there are any exceptions to the laws 
of God. He cares for you. He cares for all. 
Nature says there is no exception. God says there 
is no exception. The Bible says there is no excep- 
tion. There is no exception ! While He took care 



50 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



of Dewey on his armored cruiser. He took care of 
you in your house. While He was with Dewey in 
war, He was with you in peace. While He pro- 
tected Dewey from the bullets, He protected you 
from harm. Don't you believe He protected 
Dewey? Ask Dewey! 

You believe that God was with the Pilgrim 
Fathers when they came to America. I believe 
that God was with you when you came to Colorado. 
You believe that God is with the sons and broth- 
ers in the Philippines. I believe that He is with 
the mothers and sisters at home. There is no- 
where we can go away from God. He is on all 
waters, and in all lands. He has had a hand in 
making this country, in forming this government, 
in establishing this city, in building this church. 
He has been our guide from our youth. He has 
guided us hither. Perhaps you do not believe that. 
I doubted once ! I have doubted more than once ; 
but this time I doubted my call to the ministry. 
I was at the theological seminary, and I told my 
pastor and professor of my doubt. Well, he said, 
you are here, and do you doubt that God has 
called you here? I had not thought of that. I 
did not doubt again. 

We too often think and believe that God moves 
our feelings and conscience only, and our inward 
life, and that He has nothing to do with our out- 



THE SPIRIT OF GOD 



51 



ward movements and our material prosperity. 
That is a great mistake. If such were the case, 
His Spirit would not have moved on the waters 
of old before man appeared. And then He guided 
the movements of His people of old, the children 
of Israel. And has God changed, so that He now 
only guides the inward life and spirit of the peo- 
ple ? Never ! But some people seem to think so. 
People seem to think that the Holy Spirit does 
not move on the waters ; not even on the waters of 
Baptism. How many believe that the Spirit 
moves on the waters of Baptism, to say nothing 
of the waters of the deep where sailors go ? How 
many there are who believe that the Spirit moves 
only in a revival, or at a conversion? Can you 
show me in the Bible where the Spirit is recorded 
to have moved at such a time ? Is there a Doctor 
of Divinity who can show it to me? Is there a 
Bishop who can show it to me? Is it not time 
that we returned to the Word of God, and gov- 
erned our words and deeds by that ? You say the 
Bible means that. But I want to know what it 
says. Now there are hundreds of religious de- 
nominations which say the Bible means as many 
things. It is now high time that we return to 
what the Bible does say. 

Does the Bible say that we receive the Spirit 
of God when we are converted? Christians say 



52 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



so ; but the Bible does not say so. You have your 
choice. The Bible says we receive the Holy 
Spirit in Baptism. It says we receive the Holy 
Spirit in Confirmation, or the laying on of hands. 
It says we receive Christ in the Lord's Supper. 
These are extraordinary gifts. But we are never 
told in the Bible that any of them are received 
in conversion. But then there are the ordinary 
gifts of grace, gifts of the Spirit that we may re- 
ceive anywhere and everywhere, by land, by sea, 
far and near, by prayer and an acquiescence in 
God's law; by an endeavor to do His will, and to 
walk in His way. But it is true, too, that we 
must be converted and become as little children. 
"Except ye be converted and become as little chil- 
dren, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
Then let us be converted and become as little chil- 
dren, and not be converted and be a reproach to 
little children, as so many converted people are — 
a reproach to little children ! So many people are 
converted and become unlike little children. They 
become so unlike little children that little children 
are told that they must become converted, and be- 
come as converted men. That is the trouble. 
They reverse God's law. Little children, accord- 
ing to the Bible, are an example for converted men. 
Converted men must become like them. But mod- 
ern Christianity says little children must be con- 



THE SPIRIT OF GOD 



53 



verted and become as converted men. Little chil- 
dren are our example. Converted men are not our 
example, if we follow the Word of God. 

Let us study the Word of God, and learn where 
the Spirit moves. 



PRAYER FOR OTHERS 



But He answered her not a word (St. Matt, xv: 23). 



N this Whitsun season, when we com- 
memorate the coming of the Holy 
Ghost, and pray that He might come 
upon us, we are frequently discour- 
aged in the exercise of that great duty and privi- 
lege by an apparent rejection, or by the coldness 
of a delayed answer. We are therefore led to 
doubt the efficiency of prayer, and we say, "What 
is the use of praying?" Prayer is not always 
answered immediately, even when offered in a 
right spirit. It is with prayer as with other 
things. There must sometimes be a protracted ef- 
fort, a faithful perseverance. There is a course 
to be run. There is a progress in prayer, faithful 
progress of approach to God. But this progress 
is an encouragement of itself, and an answer. The 
very terms in which Christ encouraged prayer 
imply perseverance. When He bids us ask, it is 
not His meaning that we should grow sullenly 
silent if the first word is not heard, for, He adds, 
seeking and knocking, which imply continuing our 



PRAYER FOR OTHERS 



55 



search till we have found, and standing at the 
door till He thinks fit to open. 

Christ related two parables in proof of this. 
One in St. Luke xi., in which a man obtained by 
the force of importunity, by urgent requests of 
troublesome frequency at a time of night so un- 
reasonable that the considerations of friendship 
could not otherwise prevail. The other, in chap- 
ter xviii., in which a poor, oppressed widow 
wearied even a barbarous and profligate judge 
into justice. Let us therefore learn, with the 
Canaanitish woman, that we may pray at times, 
and God will answer us not a word. 

Jesus departed into the coasts of Tyre and 
Sidon, undoubtedly for the purpose of safety and 
rest. But even to these distant cities of heathen- 
dom had the fame of His signs and wonders pene- 
trated. No sooner had He reached the neighbor- 
hood of these old Phoenician cities, than it became 
evident that He could not be hid. A woman 
sought Him. She followed the little company of 
wayfarers with passionate entreaties : "Have mercy 
on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David ; my daughter 
is grievously vexed with a devil." We might im- 
agine that our Lord would answer such a prayer 
with immediate and tender approbation, and all 
the more because, in granting her petition, He 
would have been representing the intention of His 



56 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



kingdom to the three greatest branches of the pagan 
world, for this woman was by birth a Canaanite 
and a Syro-Phoenician ; by position a Roman sub- 
ject; and by culture and language a Greek. And 
her appeal for mercy to the Messiah of the Chosen 
people might well look like the first-fruits of that 
harvest in which the good seed should grow up 
hereafter in Tyre and Sidon, and Carthage, and 
Greece, and Rome. But Jesus — and as has well 
been said, is not this one of the numberless indi- 
cations that we are dealing, not with loose and 
false tradition, but with solid facts ? — " Jesus an- 
swered her not a word." In no other single in- 
stance are we told of similar apparent coldness on 
the part of Christ. 

Weary with the importunity of her cries, the 
disciples begged Him to send her away. But, as 
if even their intercession would be unavailing, He 
said, "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel.*' She was not of the house of 
Israel, except by faith, and that faith was to be 
prove4. Then she came and fell at His feet and 
worshipped Him, saying, "Lord, help me." Could 
He indeed remain untouched by that sorrow ? 
Could He reject that appeal? And would He 
leave her to return and watch over the life-long 
agony of her demoniac child ? Calmly and coldly 
came from those lips that never yet had answered 



PRAYER FOR OTHERS 



57 



with anything but mercy to a suppliant's prayer, 
"It is not meet to take the children's bread, and 
cast it to dogs." Such an answer might well have 
struck a chill into a human soul. And, had He not 
seen that hers was that rare trust that can see mercy 
and acceptance, even in an apparent rejection, He 
would not so have answered her. But all the 
snows of her native Lebanon could not quench the 
fire of love that was burning on the altar of her 
heart, and, prompt as an echo, came forth the 
glorious and immortal answer: "Truth, Lord; 
then let me share the condition, not of the children, 
but of the dogs ; for even the dogs eat of the 
crumbs which fall from their master's table." 

She had triumphed, and more than triumphed. 
Xot one moment longer did her Lord prolong the 
agony of her suspense. "Oh, woman," He ex- 
claimed, "great is thy faith, be it unto thee even 
as thou wilt." And, with his usual beautiful and 
graphic simplicity, St. Mark ends the narrative 
with the touching words, "And when she had come 
to her house she found the devil gone out and her 
daughter laid upon the bed." 

Here is a most beautiful lesson taught which 
we do not often see, and which w T e are very loth 
to accept : the efficacy of the prayers and faith of 
another. We are too easily lulled into the belief 
that a mother's prayers and faith for her child 



58 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



are of no avail. The beautiful lesson taught here 
should set at rest sueh a notion. It is not said 
that the daughter prayed, or had faith. Christ 
did not commend the faith of the child but only 
of the mother, and on account of the mother's 
faith and prayer, so highly commended, was the 
healing of the demoniac child performed. In 
fact, the condition of the child would preclude, as 
we might suppose, any faith and prayer whatever. 
Nor is this a solitary instance of Christ's healing 
on the faith and prayers of another. In the sec- 
ond miracle recorded by St. Matthew, our Lord 
gave life and health to one who came to His no- 
tice, not by virtue of his own faith, but of the faith 
of his master. So also in the case of the "sick 
of the palsy" in the next chapter, Jesus seeing 
their faith (i.e., the faith of the bearers), said 
unto the sick of the palsy, "Son, be of good cheer; 
thy sins be forgiven thee." In the ninth chapter 
we have no less than three instances of J esus heal- 
ing on the strength of the faith of others. What 
an encouragement this should be to sponsors and 
parents, who profess faith for children in Baptism, 
and for us all who believe and pray for our breth- 
ren. Do not give up praying for one another, and 
having faith in Him who can answer to-day as He 
did in Canaan of old. 

We may now be better able to see how God 



PRAYER FOR OTHERS 



59 



answers prayer. Many of us may be like this 
woman of Canaan. We may now be able to see, 
though at first He should answer us not a word, 
that He stands ready with the richest of blessings 
which He will dispense in His own good time. He 
may refuse us as He refused the Canaanitish 
woman, but only for a season; as also on another 
occasion He would not go down to the nobleman's 
house. And, again, when He heard that Lazarus 
was sick, He abode two days where He was. 

We are not told the reason for these cold re- 
fusals and apparent rejections. But be sure the 
cause is with us and not with God. It may be to 
prepare us for the blessings we ask, that we may 
derive from them the greatest good. It may be 
to test our trust in God, that He might crown us 
with a more glorious reward. Probably we may 
catch a glimpse of the reason in His last remarks 
to the woman, "Oh, woman, great is thy faith." 

Had we not such a noble example of perse- 
verance in prayer, I am afraid our faith would 
fail. Had not Jesus answered not a word, had 
He not refused the second time to heal the de- 
moniac child, and the third time, what reason 
could we have now to persevere in our supplica- 
tions to God? Had He healed the demoniac 
child as He healed the leper, had He gone down to 
the nobleman's house without delay, had He hur- 



60 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



ried away to the death of Lazarus, then we w T ould 
have no example of delay, no example of refusal. 
We could only say that Jesus answered with the 
promptness of an echo. We would lose all hope 
at the first refusal, or at the least delay. But now 
we have an example of the most faithful persever- 
ance. I know now I may plead with God and 
He may answer me not a word. But I am encour- 
aged to continue, even to the wearying of my neigh- 
bors. Isow I may be met with the coldness of a 
refusal. But the woman still continued, and shall 
not I ? And receive the encomium of the woman 
of Canaan, "Oh, great is thy faith," and the re- 
ward, "be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 



NOT SACRIFICE, BUT MERCY 



But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have 
mercy, and not sacrifice (St. Matt. ix:13). 



principles so-called, laid down by others. If he 
flee from one he falls into another. And one of 
the benefits to be derived from following in the 
footsteps of Jesns is the liberty that it brings. 
When Christ came into this world, the law of God 
had made it hard for the sinner, especially as the 
Pharisees had interpreted it. And there was a 
grand liberation felt at the preaching of Jesus. 
The law of nature had made it hard for a man, 
and so had the law of Moses. The world w r as in 
waiting for One who could declare with the author- 
ity of heaven, some authority as great as that of 
Moses, and that of nature: "I will have mercy 
and not sacrifice." What had been demanded be- 
fore was sacrifice. The law of nature violated, de- 
manded a sacrifice. The law of Moses violated, 




NE of the grandest conceptions of 
Christianity is the liberty of the life 
of a Christian. Man is constantly 
subjected to ideas, traditions, and 



62 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



demanded a sacrifice. Every violation of law 
demanded a sacrifice. There was no escape. The 
world was seeking an escape, but there was none 
to be found until the echo of the world's cry had 
been almost lost on the hills of despair, and the 
Messiah came, the long promised, long expected 
Messiah, which was echoed upon the ears of the 
world from the sweet promises of God; the Mes- 
siah who could stand up and say in the face of all 
law which had lived and grown and strengthened 
for thousands of years : I will have mercy and not 
sacrifice. 

Such a voice had never been heard before. 
Such a doctrine apparently in violation of all law, 
human and divine, had never been heard before. 
Who was this so presumptuous as to declare that 
the law of God should no more demand its sacri- 
fices, and nature her penalty ? In the face of all 
that had been taught and preached and practised 
for thousands of years, the world was yearning for 
just this voice of mercy. And the old traditions 
broke. The old faith failed. The old moorings 
gave way, and there was a grand rush for the 
humble teacher of Xazareth. What do you say? 
Xo sacrifice ? Only mercy ? And then, is this 
voice from heaven, or is it from men? And time 
and the world have proved ever since that this is 
the voice from heaven. And it did not take them 



NOT SACRIFICE, BUT MERCY 63 

of old long to discover that this was the voice from 
heaven. Ah, they had heard enough of the voice 
of earth : Sacrifice ! sacrifice ! ever sacrifice. Oh, 
let the smoky clouds of the sacrifices be blown aside 
that we might see the bright and glorious Mercy 
Seat. And before Christ, the last sacrifice, all 
sacrifices vanished. And do you wonder they 
vanished at such a culmination ? And Mercy took 
its place. Do you wonder that the words of Mercy 
were called the glad tidings ? Do you doubt that 
they were the glad tidings of joy to those people 
of old? 

There seems nowadays to be a lack of apprecia- 
tion of the fact that the words of Christ are glad 
tidings of joy. I do not think that Christians 
themselves appreciate the Gospel as preeminently 
glad tidings of joy. They seem, I fear, to many 
too much as the sad tidings of sorrow, rather. 
And is it not because the doctrine of the law of 
nature, with her penalty, has crept into our pulpits 
and our pews, and hushed the voice of mercy? 
Is it not because the law of Moses, with the sacri- 
fices, is heard above the voice of mercy, that we 
of the world have lost much of the idea of the glad 
tidings of joy, and think about Christianity as 
anything but joy and gladness, especially as sacri- 
fice and sadness. I believe that Christian people 
and Christianity are responsible for this state of 



64 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



affairs. We have need, as of old, of the voice 
from heaven saying, I will have mercy and not 
sacrifice. We think we believe not in sacrifices 
in these modern times. But they of old never 
preached sacrifices more than we demand them. 
In the state there are sacrifices demanded. In 
society there are sacrifices enforced. Where, I 
ask, in all our modern life, among all these de- 
mands for sacrifices, shall we look for mercy ? 
You say, in the Church. Where in the Church 
do I find but the law laid down, with all the pen- 
alties for its violation, all the sacrifices to appease 
an offended justice ? 

I take up volumes of sermons of the greatest 
preachers, and they make me weary, once lauded 
to the skies for their eloquence, and they make me 
weary with sacrifices. I hear sermons from the 
most renowned pulpits, and I hear sacrifices. I 
go about in Christian communities, where I would 
expect to hear some echo of the voice of mercy 
from the hills of Judea ; but I hear in vain, sacri- 
fices, sacrifices. Oh, for the voice of mercy, some- 
where to lighten the burden of a sin-stained soul ! 
If not found in the law, if not found in society, 
if not found in the churches, let it be found, O 
Lord, among some lonely people who have learned 
and felt the Spirit of a Saviour, so that the smoth- 
ered voice from heaven may yet break forth as of 



NOT SACRIFICE, BUT MERCY 



65 



old; that the world may see and know that the 
Gospel of Christ is, in deed and in truth, the glad 
tidings of great joy. Let the people of the day 
who demand nothing but sacrifices in life, in 
works, in amusements, in everything, be set aside 
by the voice of Jesus who took part in the innocent 
festivities of youth and broke the bonds of the 
Pharisaical fences, and broke down the walls and 
the partitions; broke the Sabbath, made wine and 
ate with publicans and sinners. 

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will 
have mercy, and not sacrifice. 



GOD'S KINGDOM NOT TO BE 
DEFENDED BY THE 
SWORD 



My Kingdom is not of this world; if My Kingdom 
were of this world, then would My servants fight, that 
I should not he delivered to the Jews; but now is My 
Kingdom not from hence (St. John xviii:36). 



with the sacrifices of war. I do not think that a 
declaration of war is wrong, though it is an evil. 
But there is a cause so good that it does not de- 
mand the declaration of war ; a cause in which the 
conquest of war is not victory, and in which ap- 
parent defeat is triumphant. 

Can you tell me why historians sheathe in 
silence the Puritan sword, and laud their deeds 
of self-sacrifice ? Can you tell me why so many 
branches of the Church bury in oblivion the his- 
tory of the Church of the middle ages, and deny 
their connection with it ? It is sometimes coward- 




E have not yet arrived at a time when 
wars have ceased. I do not think that 
the blessings of liberty, and law, and 
peace, are always too dearly bought 



GOD'S KINGDOM 



67 



ice. They cannot specify and see the real reason, 
but behold great evils, and believe it all hopelessly 
evil, because the Church wielded the sword which 
Christ told them to put up. 

Christ's kingdom is not of this world, i.e., it 
does not derive its power and authority from the 
world; but Christ's kingdom is in the world. It 
would seem that the words of the text would be 
sufficient to show that Christians should not de- 
clare war in defense of their religion. But the 
general impression among people is that they may. 
And how many have carried this opinion into 
practice ; even our honored forefathers who fought 
on our own soil for religious freedom, and from 
whom we might have expected just the opposite. 
But what church is there which can stand up and 
say with Christ, what every church ought to be 
able to say, "If our church were of this world 
then would our church members fight, that we 
should not be delivered to our enemies" ? 

When I was at the theological seminary, and 
this subject came up, I looked with amazement 
and doubt. To be sure, it was not right to con- 
vert people as Charlemagne did in the ninth cen- 
tury at the point of the sword. But, thought I, 
could we not fight for our religion in self-defense ? 
Could we not, as the Puritans did, fight for re- 
ligious liberty ? My professor answered, No. 



68 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



I was astounded. Should we give up our religion, 
then, when demanded at the point of the bayonet i 
By no means, said the professor. Do not give up. 
Die, if necessary. But do not fight ! I was slow 
to believe. I did not have to believe it. But 
after much thought and study I could not help but 
believe it, if I accepted either the practice or pre- 
cepts of our Lord and the early Christian Church. 
"If My kingdom were of this world, then would 
My disciples fight." Christ said to him who drew 
the sw r ord in defense of his Lord, "Put up again 
thy sword into his place; for all they that take 
the sword, shall perish with the sword. Thinkest 
thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and 
He shall presently give ^>Ie more than twelve 
legions of angels?" (Matt, xxv: 52 and 53). 

I do not find one iota of proof which goes to 
show that we should fight for Christianity. Every- 
thing in the life of our Lord tells of the contrary. 
He often withdrew from the infuriated crowd for 
safety, but never withdrew from the right or the 
truth, and never raised the sword in self-defense 
when attacked for His religion. If it is right 
to fight for Christianity in self-defense, then mar- 
tyrdom would be impossible and unnecessary, be- 
cause no one who falls in self-defense falls a mar- 
tyr. If you believe in martyrdom, you must do 
and teach in accordance with the example of 



GOD'S KINGDOM 



69 



Christ and the early Church. He did not call 
down the twelve legions of angels. Neither was 
there a single appeal to arms in the Church of 
the early ages. Christ did not call upon His dis- 
ciples to defend Him. Isay, He healed the wound 
inflicted in His defense. His disciples followed 
Him in this regard, even through the dark valley 
of death. 

The Christians for the first three hundred 
years and more, through ten long and bloody per- 
secutions, took only the ordinary precautions of 
safety. And those were the years of the purest 
Christianity. When Christians violated this prin- 
ciple, and drew the sword which Christ told them 
to put up, a cloud of darkness lowered upon the 
Church. Had it never unsheathed the sword, its 
history would have shone in a purer and more 
resplendent light to-day. When we w T rite the his- 
tory of the Pilgrim fathers, we like to sheathe in 
historical silence the sword which they brandished 
in the air, and dwell upon their trials and suffer- 
ings and sacrifices. And thus the spirit within, 
unconsciously though it be, tells us when we write 
the history of Christianity, to "Put up again the 
sword into his place." There is one thing that 
w T ill prove more destructive to the religion of the 
Mormons than the righteous sword of the govern- 



70 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



ment can prove, and that is the sword they wield 
themselves. 

It is not right, as so many did in times of 
great persecution, which are also times of great 
fanaticism, to rush into the fury of the persecu- 
tors and court death to win a martyr's crown. It 
is our duty to take all the ordinary precautions 
of safety, even to appeal to the government, as St. 
Paul appealed at Rome, for protection. But 
having done all that, die sooner than draw the 
sword. If the government should persecute Chris- 
tianity now as Eome did in the days of heathen- 
dom, we should do as St. Paul did — not draw the 
sword, but suffer. Then would Christianity grow 
as it did in the early years, and become a power 
which would need no sword in its defense. 

I have often heard it said by shrewd men, it 
is well that the Christian Church is divided, and 
it is well that one Church is about as strong as 
another; otherwise a dangerous power would be 
developed. It may be true; and it is a pity if it 
is true. But with principles like these, would 
not safety lie where danger was before ? "Put up 
again thy sword into his place." "If My king- 
dom were of this world, then would My servants 
fight." "My kingdom is not of this world." 

I need not ask you, Are these precepts right ? 
But are they not also in accord with the highest 



GOD'S KINGDOM 



71 



public policy ? With expediency ? I believe 
these are questions which come properly under 
this head. Need a government ever fear the 
growth and power of a Church founded on prin- 
ciples so salutary and so exalted? We do not 
forbid Christians drawing the sword at the com- 
mand of the civil government. We are taught by 
the word of God to obey our civil authorities, 
unless that obedience should be contrary to the 
express law of God. 

Would Christ and His Apostles boast of fight- 
ing for religious liberty? Would the Christians 
of the first four hundred years boast of such a 
war? Are we in this respect at least behind the 
early fathers? But our joy lies in this: that our 
fathers gained a national independence through 
the sacrifies of war. Does it not behoove us and 
the government to guard with a watchful eye 
those who would teach the contrary ? Or need 
Ave predict their doom when Christ said, "They 
who take the sword shall perish with the sword." 
How does fighting for religion seem when weighed 
in the balance ? The sword has darkened the 
pages of religious history, and men try to mend 
it by cutting out the leaves ; but let them remain, 
let the truth be seen that we may blacken them 
no more. The armor to bear in God's battle is 
more enduring than burnished brass, or polished 



72 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



steel. It is more powerful and penetrating than 
the fire of musketry, or the roll of artillery. The 
armor of God is the breastplate of righteousness, 
the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the 
sword of the spirit, and the feet shod with the 
preparation of the gospel of peace. 

Ah ! even in celebrating the sacred memory 
of the departed heroes of the late civil war, we 
naturally and wisely dwell upon their sufferings 
and sacrifices, and thereby, unconsciously and un- 
intentionally, and therefore the more powerfully, 
acknowledge the strength of the Christian armor. 
Then learn the Christian warfare against the 
powers of evil. Then 

"Soldiers of Christ arise 

And put your armor on, 
Strong in the strength which God supplies 
Through His eternal Son." 



SIN, THE LEPROSY 



And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him, 
and hneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, If 
Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, 
moved with compassion, put forth His hand, and 
touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean 



at early dawn by the choice of Twelve Apostles, 
and by a long address to them and to a vast mul- 
titude, that J esus wound His way down the moun- 
tain side, w r eary with continuous toil, followed by 
fragments of that immense throng which had lis- 
tened to the Sermon on the Mount, and which 
were now dispersing in various directions. A 
multitude held spellbound by such a preacher and 
prophet, would be loath to leave a scene where 
they held such communion with nature and with 
God. So Jesus led the way toward the sea of 
Galilee, across the plain of Gennesareth. 

As He descended the mountain and was just 



(St. Mark i:40, 41). 




T was in the northern part of Pales- 
tine, in the hills of Galilee. It w r as 
soon after that night of ceaseless 
prayer under the open sky, followed 



74 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



entering one of the little towns, a pitiable spec- 
tacle met His eyes. A poor man appeared before 
Him, with bare head and rent garments, and cov- 
ered lip, a leper — full of leprosy, smitten with 
the worst and foulest form of that loathsome dis- 
ease ; a disease most hopeless and terrible from its 
ineradicable and progressive nature when once 
thoroughly seated in the system, a disease, the 
most corrupting and contagious known in those 
countries. That poor afflicted mortal, in accord- 
ance with the cruel unchristian custom of the day, 
was not taken to a hospital to be cared for and 
cured; but was separated from home and friends, 
and was banished from civil and religious com- 
munion to roam and rave in solitudes, to aggravate 
the disease and to hurry on the end of his hope- 
less existence. It was on His way from place to 
place that Jesus met with such pitiful misery as 
this. The leper came to Him with agonies full 
of entreaty, falling on his knees before Him; 
then, in the anguish of his heart, he fell upon his 
face with but one ray of hope, and that centered 
in Him whom he approached with a mingled 
feeling of faith and doubt, in so much that he 
simply ventured to suggest to Jesus, "If Thou 
wilt, Thou canst make me clean." The poor man 
doubted whether He would; and do you wonder? 
What reason had he to hope that the young 



SIN, THE LEPROSY 



75 



Prophet of Xazareth would do for him what his 
own brethren could not do? He must have had 
a stupendous faith in Jesus w T hen he cried, "Thou 
canst make me clean. " Prompt as an echo came 
the answer to his faith, "I will, be thou clean." 

Sometimes Jesus delayed His answer to a 
sufferer's prayer. But we are never told that 
there was a moment's pause when a leper cried 
to Him. Leprosy was the acknowledged type of 
sin, and Christ would teach us that the heartfelt 
prayer of the sinner to be purged and cleansed 
is always met with immediate acceptance. When 
David, the type of all true penitents, cried with 
intense contrition, "I have . sinned against the 
Lord/' ^Nathan could instantly convey to him 
God's gracious message, "The Lord also hath put 
away thy sins; thou shalt not die." Instantly 
stretching forth his hand, our Lord touched the 
leper, and he was cleansed. It was a glorious 
violation of the letter of the Law which attached 
ceremonial pollution to a leper's touch; but it 
was at the same time a glorious illustration of the 
spirit of the Law which was, that mercy is better 
than sacrifice. The hand of Jesus was not pol- 
luted by touching the leper's body ; but the leper's 
whole body was cleansed by the touch of that 
holy hand. 

But what of the cleansing of this leper? 



70 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



There are a great many lepers who are not 
cleansed. There are thousands of sufferers now- 
a-days whose sufferings do not cease, except in 
death. And this leper was cleansed, only to live 
a few years perhaps. He was snatched from the 
jaws of death, only to return and die. But this 
is not all. There is a deeper and more spiritual 
meaning in that scene of Galilee. Can we not 
see the misery of a world stricken with the lep- 
rosy of sin, banished from the pleasures of Para- 
dise, can we not see many separated from right- 
eousness, peace and purity, from home and 
friends, to roam and die ? Ah ! now that scene 
in Galilee comes home to you and to me ! Are 
not all of us more or less afflicted with that lep- 
rosy ? Can we not learn a lesson of the leper to 
come to Jesus; to fall down on our knees before 
Him, even if we should have no more faith and 
hope than the leper had, and use his doubting 
language, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make 
me clean." Just as the leper, expelled from so- 
ciety, was cleansed and purified by Christ, so may 
the sinner be. But he must do as that leper did ; 
he must come to Jesus. Jesus did not go to the 
leper. He was on His way to Capernaum. He 
will not thrust His favor upon us. He is no un- 
invited guest. He brings salvation to our very 
doors. He will stand there and knock, and knock, 



SIN, THE LEPROSY 



77 



but He will not enter until we open and invite 
Him in. "Behold I stand at the door and knock !" 

Some of you will probably think you have 
not faith enough to come. Learn of the leper to 
come with your doubts, then; but come not boast- 
ing about them; come with humility; come with 
sorrow and grief for sin; bring them on your 
knees, and cry, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my 
unbelief." Some of you will say you are not good 
enough to come. Learn again of the leper, who 
brought all the loathsomeness of leprosy to Christ. 
What are you going to do with your leprosy, if 
you are not going to bring it to Christ ? Are you 
going to wash somewhere, and then come clean to 
Christ ? The simple example of the almost hope- 
less leper coming to Jesus in dead earnest, just 
as he was, with his faith, with his doubts, with 
his leprosy, is worth volumes of theology and 
dogma to you and to me. Behold the way pointed 
out in this scene laid in Galilee. See an illustra- 
tion of sinful man in the abandoned leper. See 
a picture of the awf ulness of sin in that foulest 
and most terrible of diseases; see Jesus passing 
by; see the awf ulness of sin kneeling, and Al- 
mighty power standing, touching, healing! Then 
learn a lesson to-day, a practical lesson. Jesus 
is passing by. He will not always be passing by. 
and will you not go to Him now ? It will not do 



78 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



to say you are not good enough; neither was the 
leper clean enough. But that was just the reason 
why he went. Can you give one good reason why 
the leper should not come to Jesus ? If so, then 
you can give a reason why sinners should not 
come to Him now. When you come, come with 
humility. There was no pride about that leper. 
Let us keep him ever in mind. 

If we fall down before Christ and breathe 
the heartfelt prayer of the leper with as much 
faith as he had, Christ will as truly answer to-day 
as He did of old, "I will, be thou clean." 



RISING FROM THE DEATH OF SIN 



And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion 
on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And He came 
and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood 
still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, 
Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to 
speak. And He delivered him to his mother (St. Luke 
vii:13, 14, 15). 



come period of His ministry. He had left Caper- 
naum, not only with His devoted disciples, but 
He was followed by rejoicing and adoring crowds. 
They had traveled southward to the plain of Es- 
draelon, then mounted the steep and rocky road 
which led to the city of Nain. Nain means 
"fair." As this glad procession was climbing 
this narrow and rocky road which leads to the 
gate of the fair city, they met another and a sad 
procession, bearing a young man that was dead, 
to lay him in one of those sepulchres with which 
the road was lined. The pleasant city was now 




HIS was the first mighty work of the 
kind that Jesus had performed, the 
raising of the dead son of the widow 
of Nain. This was a bright and wel- 



80 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



a place of mourning. There was a more than 
ordinary pathos in that scene, and probably a wail 
wilder and sincerer than ordinary lamentation. 

We know but little about this dead man, but 
that little is couched in language so absolutely 
simple that it is all the more deeply moving, and 
to Jewish ears it would convey a sense of anguish 
deeper still. "And he was the only son of his 
mother, and she a widow." Such sorrow appealed 
irresistibly to the sympathetic heart of Jesus. 
Pausing only to say to the mother, "Weep not," 
He approached, and — heedless once more of the 
ceremonial observance of the Mosaic law T — touched 
the bier. Unbidden, but filled with indefinable 
awe, the bearers of the bier stood still. And then 
through the hearts of the stricken mourners, and 
through the hearts of the silent multitude, there 
thrilled the calm utterance, "Young man, arise!" 
Would that dread word thrill also through the un- 
known mysterious solitudes of death ? Would it 
thrill through the impenetrable darkness of the 
more than midnight, which has ever concealed 
from human vision the world beyond the grave ? 
It did. The dead sat up, and began to speak; 
and He delivered him to his mother. 

No wonder fear fell upon all. They thought 
probably of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. 
They, too, in that very region had restored to 



RISING FROM THE DEATH OF SIN 81 

lonely women their dead, only sons; and truly 
they concluded that "God had visited His people. " 

We have seen what Jesus did for the young 
man at Xain. It is a type, a picture of what He 
is doing now, and of what He will do in the 
future. Xow the voice of Jesus raises the dead 
to newness of life. According to the Gospel of 
St. John, Jesus says, "The hour is coming; and 
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the 
Son of God ; and they that hear shall live." 

We do not see men's bodies raised from the 
dead now. But there is another kind of death. 
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul speaks 
of a "death in trespasses and sins." The soul 
of a man who is dead in sins is without feeling, 
without power to serve God or man acceptably; 
therefore such a man is called dead in the sight of 
God. And His call to all such is, "Awake, thou 
that sleepest, and arise from the dead." He, and 
He only, can raise the spiritually dead, and give 
them a new life, with new feelings and new 
powers. 

The raising of the son of the widow of Xain 
typifies also the general resurrection. Hereafter 
the voice of God will call the dead from their 
graves to a better life beyond. He has the keys 
of death and hades. He has power over the un- 
seen world. And so we are told that He will one 



82 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



day make use of that power; that He will, with 
a wonderful awakening, call back from death all 
that sleep in the dust of the earth, whether they 
will or no. We are told that voice will bring 
sorrow to some, and joy to others. It is only 
those who have been raised to a new life here, 
who will rise with joy there. It is only those who 
have welcomed the voice of God here, who will 
welcome it there. We may heed His voice here, 
we must heed it there. 

Have we taken our stand with God and Christ 
and the truth, and testified to the same before the 
world and our fellow men, by following in the 
footsteps of our Lord, by taking up His cause, by 
acting upon a living faith and not trembling upon 
a doubt ? How many, alas, how many are dragged 
dow r n from a possible glorious existence on a quiv- 
ering, soul-destroying doubt and enervating indif- 
ference, and let the light of faith burn low. But 
do not you grope your way about in the darkness 
of doubt which may surround you; doubt is no 
talent. But arise and look through the darkness, 
and you will see a light ; it is the light of faith. God 
placed it there for you. Walk in the direction of 
the light, and it will grow larger and burn bright- 
er, till finally it will light you safely through the 
dark valley. Oh ! let us hear the voice of the Son 
of God, as did the son of the widow of K"ain, and 



RISING FROM THE DEATH OF SIN 



83 



rise from the dead; for if we hear it not, we may 
hear no other; and they who hear it live. And 
when we pour out the impassioned prayer of 
Luther, "Oh! my God, punish us rather with 
pestilence, with sickness, with war, with anything 
rather than Thou be silent to us," let us remember 
that such silence is never that God doth not speak, 
but that we will not hear. 

To-day Jesus walks upon the rock road of this 
troublesome world, lined with sepulchral caves 
into which the dead in sin are borne. He meets 
the sorrowing to say, Weep not. And to the dead 
He says, Arise ! Is it not easier to be heard across 
the valley of death, is it not easier to be heard 
through the veil which separates mortals from 
immortals, time from eternity, than to be heard 
across the gulf which separates men from their 
God ? Oh, let us rise and fix our eye on the light 
that burns in the distance. It may be afar off, but 
it points out the direction in which to go. It may 
burn low, but it will burn brighter and illumine 
our path as we approach it. It is the light of faith. 
God placed it there for our guidance. If we walk 
not by it we may see no other. And they who walk 
by it live. If you hearken to the voice of God, 
which has no uncertain sound, and walk by the 
light of faith which is no flickering flame, you 
will find, as myriads of your fathers have found, 



84 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



that you have, if not the only, yet assuredly the 
best, comfort in sorrow, the best warning in dan- 
ger, the best hope in death ; when all else is bitter, 
it shall be sweeter than honey and the honey-comb, 
and when all else is dross, it shall be as ten times 
refined gold. 



LOOK TO JESUS 

Looking unto Jesus (Hebrews xii:2). 




HILE Benjamin Franklin was lying 
on his death-bed, he bade his nurse 
to bring a picture which he named, 
and to fasten it on the wall opposite 



his bed, that he might look upon it when he 
pleased. And what do you suppose that picture 
was ? Some ancient historic heirloom which he 
dearly prized ? Some scene of scientific progress ; 
some masterpiece of art ? It was simply the 
Saviour on the cross ! If it be true, as we are told, 
that Dr. Franklin died while gazing upon that 
picture, his countenance lighting up with a sweet 
and pleasant smile, it is not true that he lived 
and died an infidel. Poor and pitiable are the 
hopes of the moralist or the philosopher who does 
not look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of 
our faith. 

How, then, shall we do this ? By dwelling 
upon Him in our imagination, until we can bring 
back, as in a picture, the form of the Man Christ 
Jesus, who, eighteen centuries ago, suffered on the 



86 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



cross in Judea ? Is it by fixing our eyes upon 
such a representation as we sometimes see in the 
windows of churches ? Such pictures no doubt 
impress many minds for good. But such repre- 
sentations are only means to an end. The "look- 
ing unto Jesus" referred to by the Apostle is an 
act of faith, and the exercise of undoubting con- 
fidence and love. Nevertheless, it is a faith which 
shows itself and proves itself by outw T ard acts of 
obedience to a law. 

See those parents bringing their children to 
Holy Baptism. Why do they do it? Because 
they desire to have them christened, as their fore- 
fathers have always been? Because it is a con- 
venient occasion for bestowing what is called their 
"given names" ? Surely, these were not the mo- 
tives which influenced their minds. Those pa- 
rents were looking unto Jesus. They remembered 
His tender care for little children, how He set 
forth their simplicity and trustfulness as patterns 
to grown persons who would seek for entrance into 
His kingdom. They are looking unto Him to 
bless their children in this ordinance of His ap- 
pointment, and to receive them for His own 
by adoption. 

Again, at the Bishop's visitation, why do per- 
sons come forward to be confirmed and blessed 
by him ? Is it only a form, or ceremony ? Is it 



LOOK TO JESUS 



87 



simply a sham or show? Oh! I pity those who 
dare to say or think so. The candidates for Con- 
firmation who have been properly instructed, or 
are properly informed, are "Looking unto Jesus" 
when they thus kneel before His chosen servant, 
and receive the blessing which he is authorized to 
bestow. They are looking unto Him in whose 
service they thus solemnly enlist. They are look- 
ing unto Him for strength to wage a good warfare 
against evil. 

And why is it that, month by month, God's 
faithful people draw near His altar, and eat of 
the living bread, and drink of the cup of salvation ? 
Is it a hypocritical act ? Is it done in solemn 
mockery? Is it designed to impose upon the 
world? Ah! we are thus "looking unto Jesus." 
We seek fresh supplies of His gracious and ready 
help. We behold Him, as it were, presiding at 
the heavenly feast, which His goodness has thus 
prepared for the weary and heavy laden soul. 

Watch that poor troubled one as she retires to 
the privacy of her room, and wrestles with God in 
earnest prayer. Some heavy weight of care is 
crushing her to the earth. No human power can 
lift it off. She has gone to the sanctuary for 
help. She is "looking unto Jesus." Has not the 
promise been given by Him who cannot tell a lie, 
"Call upon Me in the time of trouble and I will 



88 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



hear thee, and thou shalt praise Me" ? Though 
life with its sunny skies and its flowery fields is 
fading steadily to the departing soul, yet gloomy 
darkness and disturbing doubts are lighted up 
with an unwavering faith by "looking unto Jesus." 
Wasting health and decaying strength render the 
Saviour more and more precious to the believer's 
soul. The still small voice of His matchless love 
is whispering in the contrite sufferer's ear, "I have 
conquered death, and brought life and immor- 
tality to light in the Gospel." 

Let us fall in with the funeral train as it 
moves slowly onward, bearing the corpse of a de- 
parted friend to its last resting place. At length 
the spot is reached, and all stand with uncovered 
heads around the open grave. The coffin is low- 
ered to its place in solemn silence, and then — 
"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!" 
Such is the end of worldly hopes. 

Nay, not the end ! Listen to those comfortable 
words which the minister of God is speaking now : 
"We commit the body of our departed brother to 
the ground, looking for the general resurrection 
at the last day, and the life of the world to come, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

We have traced the pathway of a Christian 
from the cradle to the grave. But by the eye of 
faith we can penetrate within the veil, and follow 



LOOK TO JESUS 



89 



him beyond the narrow boundaries of time. The 
Archangel's trump awakes the sleeping dead. The 
Eternal Judge is seated on His throne. Fear and 
dismay seize the guilty throng who stand upon the 
King's left hand. And why should those on the 
right appear less anxious and unconcerned ? They 
are "Looking unto J esus." That same blessed and 
merciful Lord who died for them, whom they con- 
fessed before men in Baptism, Confirmation, and 
Holy Communion, and glorified in lives of faith- 
ful obedience, is now to be their Judge. They 
know in whom they have believed, they only await 
the summons to enter the joy of their Lord. 

There is another way in which we must look 
unto Jesus, and a most practical one. We never 
should allow a day to pass without comparing our 
actions with what Christ would do under similar 
circumstances. We should read the Bible, and 
hear it read, with the view of throwing light upon 
our life; we should thus be guided into the right 
and the truth. Whenever we are in doubt as to 
what to do, "Look unto Jesus" for what He did 
under similar circumstances. Then shall our life 
and conduct be made broad and deep and free in 
truth and charity. 

The question should not be so much what this 
or that Church teaches, as what did Christ teach 
by word and deed. It is well to know what 



90 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



Churches teach, but we should always correct them 
by the life of Christ. And I desire you to note 
this: How broad, and liberal, and charitable, and 
compassionate, and free, Christ is as compared 
with the churches of His day and ours. Do you 
know, I believe that Christ's actions would not be 
tolerated to-day much more than they were in His 
own day ! This also is the way in which we must 
look unto Jesus ! 

To what source are we looking for comfort and 
support amidst the duties and trials and troubles 
of life, the pains of death and awful realities of 
the judgment? Is it to any earthly object? If 
so, our hopes will be sure to fail. We may live 
on in delusion until the trying moment comes, and 
then, when the support is most needed, we will 
surely find ourselves leaning on a broken reed. 

More than likely some of us belong to that 
large class of unhappy people who only allow them- 
selves to think of the present, and who have formed 
no plans, and made no provision for the future. 
Is this wise ? Is it right ? Is it doing justice to 
yourselves ? Is it showing proper regard for God 
or humanity? When He has done so much to 
point out the good way, the way of salvation, is it 
asking too much that we should exert ourselves a 
little to walk in it? ^None of us has been left 
altogether in darkness or doubt. God, of His 



LOOK TO JESUS 



91 



infinite love, has showed us what is good and right, 
and what He wishes us to do. Oh! do not let us 
set our heart upon this world first, because it will 
fail. Seek first the Kingdom of God. Live not 
for the present only. Make timely preparation 
for eternity. Love God and your neighbor. Do 
not be ashamed of being a Christian. "Look unto 
Jesus!" as Benjamin Franklin did, that great 
scientist and thinker, and leader of his age. 



THE CHURCH 

The Church of the Living God (I. Tim. iii:15). 




OME honest simple soul will some- 
times join the Roman Church, and 
then come back and tell us what she 
has learned about it. I wish such 



would come to me; I could tell them a thing or 
two. And then she will tell us which is the old- 
est Church, the original Church — the Roman 
Church, of course ! It is simply the same old story 
of our race. It is believing in the Church as we 
do in the state ; the story of the dark, inferior race 
of southern Europe, instead of our own white, su- 
perior race of the north, from which we are de- 
scended. Let us look at these great claims to be 
the oldest Church, the original Church, the first 
Church, and only first Church. They are much 
like many other claims; they will not stand the 
light of day, nor searching powers of reason. 

One of the strange things of history is that the 
Greek Church does not enter into the consideration 
of modern thought. The greatest Church that the 
world ever saw for a thousand years is entirely 
left out of our modern consideration. Why, if 
such an element should be left out of an astronomi- 



THE CHURCH 



93 



cal calculation, the result would be disastrous, and 
yet we do it in religion without a smile, without 
a wink, without a quiver. Now we know, if we 
know anything, that the first Church was not 
Roman or Latin, but Greek. That Greek Church 
is living to-day all over the eastern half of Europe 
and western Asia, where it always has lived, and 
has lived every day since the days of Christ and 
the Apostles; and, for the first thousand years of 
the Christian era, it was the greatest Church the 
world ever saw. For the first thousand years it 
was in communion with the Church of Rome, but 
for the past nine hundred years it has not been in 
communion with the Church of Rome. If the 
Greek Church were not so far away; if it were 
not so far away as Russia and Greece and Turkey 
in Europe and Asia, it would compel us to listen 
to the truth of this thing. But she is so far away 
that it is safe for us to entirely ignore her, and 
build up our own theory on the subject. 

Draw a line from north to south through the 
middle of Europe, and, approximately speaking, 
at the time of Christ, on the east side of that line 
the Church spoke Greek, and on the west side of 
that line the Church spoke Latin; and that fact 
has not changed much for nineteen hundred years. 
It is largely so to-day. East of that line was the 
Greek Church, and west of that line was the Latin, 



94 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



or Roman Church. These two Churches were 
very well defined for a thousand years, and they 
are very well defined to-day. What right have 
you and I to consider which was the first Church, 
without taking into account the Greek Church ! 
If the Greek Church were here, it would be un- 
necessary for me to speak. It is well able to take 
care of itself, and to defend its own claims, and 
the high position which it holds in this regard. 
What was the Church when it was first started on 
the day of Pentecost in the upper room at Jerusa- 
lem, in the year of our Lord 33 ? Was it Roman ? 
Was it Latin? Was it in Latin territory? Xo, 
sir ! It was Greek, and in Greek territory. They 
wrote Greek and spoke Greek, and the entire Bible 
was written in Greek — Old Testament and New 
Testament. The Old Testament was translated 
into Greek, and the New Testament was written 
originally in Greek — every bit of it — unless it 
could be said that the Gospel according to St. Mat- 
thew was not written originally in Greek. If not, 
it was written originally in Hebrew, and after- 
wards in Greek. Even the Epistle to the Romans 
was written in Greek, which was not till a quarter 
of a century after the Church was founded at 
Jerusalem, and even that time was probably bo- 
fore St. Paul had ever visited Rome. 

At what time the Church was founded at 



THE CHURCH 



95 



Home I do not know exactly. I do not think any 
one knows exactly when. But whenever it was 
founded, that marked the time of the origin of 
the Church of Rome. But no one will say, who 
has the least grain of reason, that the Church of 
Borne was founded as early as the Church of J eru- 
salem or the Greek Church. Everybody admits 
that the Church was founded first at Jerusalem, 
and not at Borne. And if there is any first and 
second about it, the Greek Church was founded 
first, and the Roman Church was started after- 
wards as an expansion from Jerusalem, or from 
the Greek Church. Just as the Church of Eng- 
land was started in the earliest days of Chris- 
tianity from the Church of Ephesus in Asia 
Minor, or, what is the same thing, from the Greek 
Church. The Roman Church and the Church of 
England, therefore, have exactly the same origin. 
They are both expansions from the Greek or East- 
ern Church, and the dates of that expansion are 
not very far apart. The Eastern or Greek Church 
is not to be ignored. It is not to be ignored to-day. 
Some day that Church will make itself felt in this 
country. And then she will not allow her claims 
to be dealt with as they are dealt with to-day. 

Now what part of the Christian Church in the 
Bible was Boman? What part of the Christian 
Church lay west of this imaginary line that I have 



96 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



drawn from north to south through the middle of 
Europe ? The Church was established before the 
Bible was written, and do you tell me that that 
w~as the Roman Church, that first Church ? No 
part of it was Roman that I know of except the 
Christians, or the Church, that was at Rome. 
Every other Church almost that I can think of, 
that is mentioned in the Bible, was east of this 
north-and-south line, and was consequently the 
Greek Church, or the Eastern Church. All the 
writers of the New Testament lived east of this 
line, and wrote Greek. All the seven Churches 
mentioned in the Apocalypse lay east of this line, 
and were Greek. All the Christians to whom St. 
Paul wrote his Epistles were east of this line, ex- 
cept the Romans. The Roman Church has a 
translation of the original Scriptures, just as we 
have, only theirs is a Latin translation, and ours 
is English. The Greek was the original language, 
and the Greek Church was the original Church. 
The Greek Church, to my mind, was the greatest 
Church for a thousand years. All the Ecumenical 
Councils for the first thousand years were held 
within Greek territory, and used the Greek lan- 
guage. The language of the universal creeds was 
Greek. 

The first great division of the Church took 
place in about the year 1000, and then it divided 



THE CHURCH 



07 



according to the line that I have drawn through 
Europe from north to south. It divided princi- 
pally according to language. The Church east 
of that line was called the Eastern or Greelkj 
Church, and the Church west of that line was 
called the Western or Latin Church, and those 
names obtain largely to this day. All the three 
Churches were in communion up to this time — the 
Greek, the Roman, and the English. The Roman 
and the English were in communion five hundred 
years longer, when, in 1571, the Roman Church 
withdrew from the Church of England by a papal 
bull. There is no guess-work about this ; w T e have 
the documents, and the dates. There is no such 
thing as the separation of the Church of England 
from the Church of Rome. It was the other way. 
The only way you can overthrow these facts of 
history based on public records and documentary 
evidence and papal bulls, would be by infallibility. 

Talk not to me about the Roman Church and 
ignore the Greek, the earliest Church, and the 
greatest Church of many centuries. 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 



To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to 
be saints: Grace to you, and peace, from God our 
Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ (Komans i:7). 



and our duty to it. I desire to present a view 
of this Church which people generally do not 
seem to see. The greatest objection that we have 
to the Eoman Catholic Church is that it is not 
Catholic, and that it holds many doctrines that 
are not Catholic. In other words, it is not a uni- 
versal Church holding universal doctrines. Catho- 
lic means universal, and it does not mean anything 
else. While I say this, I say it with all charity 
to its members. But charity to its members must 
not blind us to the truth. There was a time when 
all the Christians in the world were in one Church. 
Then the Church was Catholic. It was universal, 
and it held Catholic, or universal doctrines. This 
obtained through the first few centuries. At that 




Y subject to-night is what you general- 
ly call the Catholic Church, but which 
is better called the Roman Church ; 
better yet, the Italian Church — 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 99 



time the Pope of Rome was simply the Bishop 
of Rome, nothing more, nothing less; and that is 
all he of right is to-day, simply the Bishop of 
Rome. Now if we lived in Rome we might have 
some duty to the Bishop of Rome, perhaps. But 
living in America, it is different. We have Bish- 
ops here whose rank is equal to that of the Bishop 
of Rome. According to the Bible and Catholic 
principles, the Bishop of Rome could have no 
jurisdiction over Catholic Bishops here, any more 
than a Catholic Bishop here in America could 
have jurisdiction over the Bishop of Rome. St. 
Peter never claimed jurisdiction over St. John at 
Ephesus, or St. James at Jerusalem. Nor did 
St. James of Jerusalem claim jurisdiction over 
St. John at Ephesus, or any other Apostle. The 
only theory upon which the Roman Catholic 
Church can stand is the development theory. 
Their Church developed, and their doctrines de- 
veloped. I understand they hold that theory. 
I hold that the Roman Church all over the world 
is an Italian Church, because it is completely 
ruled, dominated, and controlled by the Italian 
Cardinals, and as long as it is, that Church ought 
to be confined to Italy. 

I desire to call the attention of Americans and 
Northern Europeans, and all members of the great 
white race, as to where their duty lies, and where 



100 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



their salvation lies, and that it does not lie with 
the dark race of southern Europe; it does not lie 
with the Italians. I speak with all due respect 
to the races, white or black or dark. Neither do 
I think that the salvation of the dark race of south- 
ern Europe lies with the white race of the North. 
But I say this, that Roman Catholics all over the 
world have given over their religious liberties, 
the ruling power in their religion and the dictation 
of the mode of their salvation, to Italians. We 
have just an opposite example in this city of the 
actual state of affairs. We have Italians here, 
and we have the northern white race here in the 
Roman Church. The northern white race is the 
dominant ruling element. But all these are ruled 
and dominated by the Italians in Italy. Why 
not be dominated and ruled by the Italians in 
Durango ? Why not turn over to them the dicta- 
tion of the mode of your salvation? Why not 
turn over to them the custody of your faith % That 
is exactly parallel to what is being done by the 
Church at large. 

For the first thousand years the Church was 
one. Then the Church split in two: into East- 
ern and Western; into Greek and Roman. The 
Eastern Church did not think the Western or 
Roman Church did right. Then, in the year 
1500, northern Europe broke from the Roman 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 101 



Church largely. Remember, those people who 
broke away were largely in communion with the 
Church of Rome. If the Roman Church blames 
anybody it must blame its own members. The 
Reformation was a revolution in the Church, and 
a revolt. The northern race could not stand the 
dictation of the Italians in religious affairs. They 
had been tried in the balance and found wanting, 
and they have been found wanting in almost every 
other element of civilization and advancement, as 
well as in religion. They have been found want- 
ing in the administration of the Church, and they 
have been found wanting in the administration of 
the state, until the Pope is a confessed prisoner in 
the Vatican, as I understand it. 

The Pope claimed universal temporal power, 
and once swayed kings and emperors ; and he still 
claims it. But that power has been reduced until 
even Italy herself has repudiated it, and he sits 
from his window in Rome and beholds a supreme 
temporal power that is not his own. And he sees 
three-fourths of the Christian world turned against 
him. He claims universal jurisdiction over the 
Christian world, when three-fourths of it has re- 
pudiated him. A pitiable spectacle ! Now I ask, 
What is the duty of the great white race ? Is it 
to turn the custody of their faith over to an alien 
race and an alien state, an alien Church ? A state 



102 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



which has failed as a first-class power, and a race 
which has failed in civilizing influences, and a 
Church that has failed in its boastful pretentions 
of supreme power, temporal and religious? It is 
the duty of the great white race to be in their own 
Church which God has given them, and which has 
borne the best fruit of the ages, to have a share 
in the custody of their own religion, and not to 
give it over to aliens and foreigners. It is our 
duty to cast our lot with the first-class powers of 
the world wherein God placed us, and not with 
decaying secondary powers. Why should Italians 
rule the Christian world and dictate to it? Does 
it not seem preposterous? Is there anything in 
the race that indicates that they should? They 
are the poorest race in Europe. Is there anything 
in their language that they should? The Latin 
language is not the language that people under- 
stand to-day, even in Italy. Why, then, should 
it be used in worship ? Is there anything in the 
education of the Italians that they should rule 
over us in religion ? Nobody goes to Italy for an 
education, not to modern Italy, and it is modern 
Italy which rules, you say. The Pope claims uni- 
versal jurisdiction over the Christian world, and 
you allow it and help it on. Yes, and the Pope 
claims universal jurisdiction over the temporal 
world, and why do you not allow that and help that 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 103 



on? But you do not. You do not permit it. 
You say he is mistaken about that. Very well, 
then if he is mistaken in this jurisdiction, may he 
not be mistaken in the other also ? 

God never intended that we should be ruled 
over in any respect by the Italians, or by Italy. 
There is no reasonable indication of it on God's 
footstool. Save your children from such a ca- 
lamity. 



BE COURTEOUS 

Be Courteous (I. Pet. iii:8). 




HAT is, be a gentleman. Be a lady. 
Education and culture are of the 
highest importance. They are not to 
be contrasted. They should go to- 



gether. We think a great deal of education; but 
we do not think or talk so much of culture, that 
advancement and refinement of the mind so essen- 
tial in the quality of every lady and gentleman. 
We sj>end time and means and money on an educa- 
tion; but we do not often spend much on culture. 
Is culture not practical enough for this age ? It 
could be utilized in society and in social circles 
to tremendous advantage, and the business world 
now is demanding men of culture, as well as men 
of education, to fill stations in life. We do not 
want boors or snobs and snubbers anywhere. We 
want men who know how to be gentlemen, and 
who will act up to that knowledge. 

However much the family, the state, and the 
Church may do for education, they certainly do not 



BE COURTEOUS 



105 



do much nowadays for culture. What a great ad- 
vantage it would be to the boys themselves, and 
to the families, and to our country, if the boys 
could receive some culture of manner and speech 
and action, and be guided by the right. I am 
in no mood to advocate a return to a titled nobility, 
or aristocracy. But I imagine children from such 
families were well cultured boys and girls, at one 
time, at least. And I wish we could have re- 
tained that old culture without the modern snob. 
We sometimes hear the expression : "A gentleman 
of the old school." That means a great deal. I 
am afraid the gentleman of the "new school" is not 
much of an improvement. It would be well if 
parents would see to the culture of their children, 
as well as to their education. The best school of 
culture is the family. Some are naturally culti- 
vated boys and girls. They sometimes grow up 
ladies and gentlemen under the most adverse sur- 
roundings. But culture should never be neglected. 
It can overcome much natural perversity, and 
conquer many an opposing force. But the Church 
is an institution of culture as well as of learning 
and religion, and in seeking the Kingdom of God 
you will find a culture. 

Now you will probably tell me that we should 
seek the Kingdom of God for another purpose, viz., 
salvation. That is true. You are right. But 



106 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



when you talk of joining a church you often say: 
"Well, I joined such and such a church because I 
felt at home there." If you do, then I can say 
that I will go into a certain church because there 
is culture there. Now I wish to make a statement. 
If I am too modest to make it, nobody else will. 
I hope, therefore, that you will permit me to make 
it. It is this: There is more culture in this 
Church than in any other Church in the world. 
Everybody does not know this. Many know it, 
and won't tell. I say this because I want you to 
take advantage of it, and I want your children to 
take advantage of it. Especially do I want the 
members of this Church to appreciate this and 
every other good feature of the Church, and speak 
of it to their friends and neighbors, and not to cast 
away pearls for something cheaper. Here is 
where you can make gentlemen of your boys, and 
ladies of your girls. You want a book of etiquette 
for your boys and girls. The best book of eti- 
quette that I know of is the Bible, together with 
the Apocrypha. I do not know whether I have 
convinced you upon this point or not. But I am 
going to convince you of something before I get 
through, and on this line of culture which is a 
refinement of the mind, valuable to any man or 
woman ; valuable to the Church and state and fam- 
ily. There is culture in literature. There is good 



BE COURTEOUS 



107 



literature, and poor literature. These two classes 
exist, not because the moral in one is good and in 
the other it is bad, but because the language in 
one is good and of the best, while in the other it 
is bad. A good moral sermon, therefore, may be 
very poor literature. The best class of literature 
in this sense is called standard literature. 

Now then, please permit me to say this, which 
none of you will deny, and which none successfully 
can deny: that this Church has the greatest stand- 
ard religious literature in the world, and it is con- 
tained in two books — the Bible and the Book of 
Common Prayer. I claim the English Bible, be- 
cause it was translated by this Church, and trans- 
mitted to the world by this Church, and the Prayer 
Book is the development of centuries in the Church 
as a companion to the Bible. They both stand 
unequalled in religious literature. There is not 
a translation of the Bible on earth that equals in 
standard literature the English Bible. Not the 
Latin, not the Greek, not the Russian, not the 
German, not the Scandinavian. None equals the 
English for standard literature. There is no bet- 
ter literature in the English language than Shake- 
speare and the Bible. They stand at the head, 
and they cannot be improved upon. There is no 
Prayer Book, no service book, no ritual in the 
world, whether among lodges or churches or re- 



108 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



ligious societies, that can equal the literature of the 
Book of Common Prayer. It stands above every- 
thing of its kind on earth, and so does the English 
Bible. 

It may seem a very strange thing to people that 
the Prayer Book cannot be improved upon in this 
respect, but it is nevertheless a fact. In respect 
to its literature, this Church stands the highest of 
any Church in the world. It is the best equipped 
for culture. For the most beautiful services we 
must go to the Episcopal Church. Is it any won- 
der, then, that the world so often speaks of the 
most beautiful services of the Episcopal Church ? 
And it must be a satisfaction to us to know that 
they are, by far and beyond compare, the most 
beautiful services in the world. And why should 
we not have the most beautiful services in the 
world? If we have them not, we ought to get 
them and possess them. We have a right to the 
best, and God wants us to have the best. Now 
I think it is due you, due the members of this 
Church, that I should thus pass my judgment upon 
this matter. 



PEOPLE-MAY HOLD THEIRfBELIEFS, 
BUT MUST NOT DIVIDE 



That they may he one (St. John xvii:ll). 



m 



HIS is the prayer of Jesus: that His 
disciples may be one. What Jesus 
prayed for, we should pray for. We 
should pray that we all may be one, 
that there may be unity among us ; that there may 
be one fold and one shepherd. This prayer is 
also in accordance with the conclusions of science ; 
it was not many years go, but it is to-day. Science 
has advanced so far that it now agrees with Chris- 
tianity. This is a wondrous thing to tell of itself. 
A wondrous confirmation of our faith from a 
source which was once considered hostile, and 
which by some is so considered still. But do we 
pray that prayer of Jesus ? That beautiful prayer 
for unity among His disciples ? Do we pray that 
prayer enough ? Or do we pray it at all ? Do 
we not even try to do the very opposite sometimes ? 
Do we not even go so far as to try to make a di- 
vision among the disciples ? Do we try to hold 
the disciples together, or do we try to pull them 



110 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



apart? In what direction do our desires and our 
prayers go? I have the greatest desire for one 
grand, broad, Catholic unity, a unity that should 
be universal; a unity that would show the uni- 
versal brotherhood, a universal love; and to that 
end I labor and toil. If we are to have that uni- 
versal brotherhood we must build it upon that 
universal Man, Christ Jesus. He founded that 
universal brotherhood. But man has sought and 
succeeded in narrowing it. 

Now, in what direction are we working ? Are 
we seeking and working and praying to keep the 
disciples together in one grand brotherhood, or 
are our efforts indifferent, or are they for dividing 
the disciples? I do not care how poor or frail 
or humble the mortal, I do not want to see even 
the least or the poorest separated from the unity 
of the discipleship. That would be frustrating 
the very object of our Lord's Prayer. There is 
truth in every Church. But there is no reason 
why we should leave the unity of this great brother- 
hood, and run after that truth. You may have, 
and you do have, that truth in this universal broth- 
erhood. You may have all the truth of Chris- 
tianity here. You may hold all the truth of 
Christianity here. Because for centuries all the 
Christians were embraced within the fold of this 
Church, and we must look upon this Church as 



PEOPLE MAY HOLD THEIR BELIEFS 111 

the ground from which all came, or from which 
all divided. Now you think that I blame all who 
separated from the brotherhood, or divided. Yes, 
I do. Be the cause ever so good, the act itself 
is in direct opposition to the desires and prayers 
of Christ. But, I do not blame them alone. I 
blame the Church also from which they divided, 
because those who remained in the Church may 
have provoked the division, or even caused it. I 
therefore do not take sides in this matter. I do 
not blame one party and uphold the other. But I 
deplore the divisions which are contrary both to 
Christianity and science; contrary to the spirit 
of the age ; contrary to the spirit of philanthropists 
and the wisest statesmen who labor for peace and 
unity, and do not delight in war. 

But here is a fact in this great problem that 
people generally do not seem to know. When 
people reach out for other churches, they do it, 
apparently, to find some new truth that they did 
not find in the church where they were. Or they 
do it to emphasize some neglected truth in the 
church where they were. But the step is wrong, 
because it is against the prayers of Jesus. The 
same thing can be accomplished in another way. 
And it is being accomplished in another way all 
the time. That is, it is and can be accomplished 
without division or separation of the brethren. 



112 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



And that this can be done inside the Church was 
shown by the Methodists when they started, not as 
a church, but as a society inside of the Church of 
England. It was not for years and years, and 
not until their great founder, John Wesley, was 
dead, that this Methodist society separated from 
the Church of England, or organized into a church 
of their own. But John Wesley himself never left 
the Church of England, and pleaded with his fol- 
lowers not to leave it, and they should not have 
left the Church of England. There was no need 
of their leaving it. There was a reason for the 
organization of the Methodist society in the 
Church of England. The religious life in the 
Church of England had grown cold and careless, 
and some organized under Wesley for a more 
earnest and sincere Christian life and religious 
fervor; and there w r as no reason why they should 
separate from the Church. John Wesley thought 
exactly the same as I do, and he ought to know 
better than any one else in the world. He w r as a 
minister and presbyter in the Church of England, 
which is the same Church as this, as long as he 
lived, and never wanted to leave it. That is the 
way every Methodist minister should be. They 
ought not to go back on their great founder. We 
now have that same religious fervor in the Church 
that the Methodists strove for and started. There 



PEOPLE MAY HOLD THEIR BELIEFS 113 



is no reason for the division. We need the Meth- 
odists, and the Methodists need us, to make a 
broader and more universal Church than either is 
now. And so I might go on with almost every 
modern division. 

Take the Christian Scientists, for instance. 
They found in the Church a coldness, as the origi- 
nal Methodists did, but on other lines. They 
found a coldness and doubt about the faith in 
healing the sick. As is almost always the case, 
their leaders were not wholly right as to what the 
Church did believe and practise. But they were 
at least partly right, that there was a coldness and 
lack of faith in the Church on the part of those, 
too, who ought to know and do better. I do not 
blame the Christian Scientists for their faith in 
healing, 2\or do I blame Dowie for his faith in 
healing. But I blame anybody who separates 
from his brethren. I blame anybody who has a 
hand in creating or making a division. Because 
that is plain; that is against the prayers and 
wishes of Jesus. Whatever else is right, that is 
wrong. But this is a tremendous question. There 
is one thing certain. God permits these divisions, 
and it must be for some ultimate good, some of 
which I think I can see. But divisions and sepa- 
rations are not the highest. In themselves they 
are an evil, contrary to science; contrary to true 



114 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



religion; contrary to great hearts in the world; 
contrary to the prayers and wishes of Jesus; con- 
trary to God's ultimate will. Divisions must go 
and unity must come. 

Whatever else may be error, that is the truth. 



HOW SHALL I PRAY? 



Lord, teach us to pray . . . And He said unto 
them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in 
heaven, Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, 
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth (St. Luke 



the one she had adopted, after coming to America. 
I learned to pray at my mother's knee, as we all 
did, I hope. I learned the Lord's Prayer so long 
ago that I do not remember the time. It was of 
my older sister that I learned that beautiful 
child's prayer in verse: 

"Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 

While most of the prayers I used were printed 
or committed to memory, I was never told that one 
kind of prayer was better than another, or that 
one way of praying was more acceptable to God 
than another way, provided I was reverent and 



xi:l, 2). 




HEN I went away from home, I went 
away with my mother's prayers, my 
mother's Bible, and my mother's re- 
ligion. Yes, and my mother's Church, 



116 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



had my thoughts on what I said. While my 
prayers were largely out of a book, I was never 
taught that extempore prayer was no good. While 
I have learned much since I left home, I have not 
been able to improve upon my ideas of prayer in 
this respect. All prayers were allowed me then. 
ivTone were excluded from my use, formal or in- 
formal, printed or committed, extempore or writ- 
ten. My ideas were as broad and free as the blue 
expanse above. I could read my prayer, or say 
my prayer, or sing my prayer, or pray my prayer, 
or preach my prayer, and God would receive it. 
I could breathe my prayer, or think my prayer, 
and God would receive it. Oh, blessed liberty and 
blessed light. Think that I should have to go 
away from home to find it otherwise, to find a 
world narrower than my home! 

When I w r ent out into the world I found I 
was too broad for many people. I was told by 
Christian people that many of my prayers were 
no prayers at all. And to "say" my prayers w r as 
no praying. I was upset and unsettled, and con- 
fused and confounded. Yet I hoped that God 
was broad enought to take me in, also. I believed 
that He had received my prayers from the time 
I lisped them from my mother's knee. I have 
studied the Bible diligently, and yet I have never 
found it necessary by that to narrow my early 



HOW SHALL I PRAY? 



117 



training. The Bible never said anything against 
my modes of prayer, or any forms of prayer. 
The Christian churches have a wonderful oppor- 
tunity to be broad and liberal, but they do not 
seem to grasp it. As their fathers thought, so 
think they down in the ruts, and they do not seem 
able to get out, narrow as the old Puritans. I 
have continued my breadth of thought, always 
believing that God will receive prayers though 
man will not receive them, that He receives all 
prayers, provided a man is honest and conscien- 
tious who prays. A prayer does not have to be 
prescribed by man or a church in order to be ac- 
ceptable to God. A prayer does not have to be 
acceptable to a preacher, or to a church, in order 
to be acceptable to God. God is always more 
liberal than man. I do not preach against any 
kind of prayer. As long as it is a prayer, let it 
ascend to the throne, and do its work and have its 
influence. 

I had not been away from home long before 
I found that the good Christian people around 
me tried to curtail my privileges and my liberty. 
They told me I must not "say" my prayers. To 
"say" my prayers was not praying. That was the 
first time I had heard that. Perhaps they were 
right and I was wrong. But I would see about 
that. My early training was attacked. I took 



118 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



down my Bible, and I found what Jesus had to 
say. I would abide by whatever He said. And 
I found St. Luke xi : 2, where Jesus says : When 
ye pray, "say" "Our Father, which art in heav- 
en," etc. I am right ! When I pray I "say" my 
prayers. The preachers are wrong who say that 
I must not "say" my prayers. Jesus tells me -to 
say, and I will say! But, then, some people have 
always got to preach against something anyway ; 
even against the Bible. I teach the children of 
the Church to say the Lord's Prayer and other 
prayers. And I am not ashamed to teach them to 
say their prayers, because Christ used that same 
expression, that same word. And I do not want 
to discourage the children in any kind of prayer. 
Let them use that which seems to them easiest 
and best. The great thing after all is to pray, 
if they will only pray. But we had a preacher 
from Denver who should teach the children how 
to pray. The disciples asked our Lord, "Teach 
us to pray." And our Lord answered, When ye 
pray "say," and the preacher from Denver says : 
When ye pray do not say. Now that is the differ- 
ence between our Lord and Denver. I waited 
patiently and breathlessly for the Denver minister 
to tell the children how they should pray if they 
should not say their prayers, but he never told 
them. Such teaching as that will drive away a 



HOW SHALL I PRAY? 



119 



boy or girl from praying altogether. What differ- 
ence does it make in what way a man prays, if he 
only prays? The fact that a man prays, that is 
the all-important thing, not how he prays. The 
fact of the matter is, the Bible lays down no rule 
for prayer except this one : "When ye pray, say." 
And, strange as it may seem, this solitary rule 
for prayer laid down in the Bible is the one that 
preachers deny and attack, and the only one they 
deny. That is just like preachers. If an angel 
should come down from heaven and tell you that 
to say prayers was not praying, tell him he is 
wrong, and prove it by the word of God. 

This shallow, ignorant way of treating the 
word of God does more to drive children from 
praying, from the Bible and the Church, than it 
is possible to compute. Do . not hesitate to say, 
do not be ashamed to say, that you say your 
prayers. Christ used that same expression, and 
now I ask why do not all Christians use that 
same expression ? Be brave and hold to what you 
believe, and what your mother taught you in the 
way of prayer. 

Close the door of your room, seek the humble 
chapel or cloistered cathedral, or go forth into the 
highway at noon, or into the solitudes of night ; 
and there or anywhere, put forth a lofty desire 
of the soul, or a noble wish, or a petition or re- 



120 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



quest to the throne of grace, breathed or spoken 
or said, uttered or unexpressed, and heaven itself 
is as open to them as the open canopy of the sky. 



THE LORD IS GOD NEAR 
AND AFAR OFF 



The nobleman saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere 
my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy 
son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus 
had spoken unto him, and he went his way (St. John 



Christ. He seems to have been an official of 
great authority. From such, our Saviour gener- 
ally found not only neglect, but even aversion, 
ilnd from the records we have reason to suspect 
that this nobleman was once no better disposed. 
For when, as a last resort, he sought the Lord's 
assistance, the answer plainly reproves a faith 
weak and slow and scrupulous. Jesus told the 
nobleman that no evidence of doctrines, no cred- 
ible testimony, nor anything less than miraculous 
power, brought home to his own senses and his 
own benefit would convince him. And yet to this 



iv:49, 50). 




HE conversion of this nobleman is 
remarkable, because he is the first 
person of that rank and station who 
stands upon record as believing 



122 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



infirmity our Lord graciously condescended. And 
on that account I am led to believe that He con- 
descends to our infirmities to-day. 

Now let us see what brought this nobleman to 
Christ. He did not care anything for Him — he 
cared for his child. He was not anxious to know 
if He were really the promised Messiah. It never 
entered his mind to become His disciple. Yet 
he comes because trouble had entered his home; 
because riches and grandeur had no power to stem 
the progress of disease and death. The doctors 
can do nothing. The father fears the death of 
his son. He hears that Jesus has returned to 
Galilee, and, no doubt, besides the news of His 
return, reports of His wonderful works. The 
nobleman goes to Him, not because, like the poor, 
despised Samaritan, he believes Him to be "the 
Christ, the Saviour of the world," but because he 
thinks of Him as a wonderful Healer, one who 
may be able to save his child. So the nobleman's 
trouble brings him to Christ. Now, my friends, 
if we have not gone to Christ at any other time, 
let us go to Him in trouble. If we have not gone 
to Him because He is the Christ, let us go to Him 
because He can help us. Let us go to Him, any- 
how; and we shall soon learn that He is just the 
one we need in this world. Trials and dangers 
frequently teach faith. If we lay not up treasures 



THE LORD IS GOD NEAR AND AFAR OFF 123 



in heaven we will lose everything, because we can 
only have a life-lease on the things of this world ; 
a life-lease, that is all. The saving of one single 
soul is worth living for, is worth more than all 
the world. A cup of cold water given in the 
name of Jesus to one who is thirsty, is worth an 
eternal reward. Christ spoke of no other rewards. 

Suppose you owned all the world, you could 
only hold it by a life-lease which may end to- 
morrow, which must end in a few fleeting years. 
But treasures laid up in heaven are yours forever. 
The smallest in eternity is greater than the great- 
est in time. 

Let us see how the Lord treats this nobleman. 
Then we may learn how He deals with the world 
to-day. His dealing with this nobleman deserves 
the more notice because so very different from His 
dealing with an inhabitant of the same city, a 
dependent upon the same court, and in a case very 
similar. When a centurion whose servant lay sick 
at Capernaum, too, asked His help, the message 
met with this encouraging reply, "I will come 
and heal him." Accordingly, without the least 
delay, our Lord was on His way ; but was stopped 
by this most noble yet humble declaration of his 
faith : Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst 
come under my roof, but speak the word only and 
my servant shall be healed." INTow here is a noble- 



124 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



man, a person of much higher rank, entreating 
Him earnestly to come and heal his son; a rela- 
tion much dearer, as the officer was much superior. 
And vet we find nothing like the same readiness 
in complying with this request. I point out this 
to show that our Lord did what was right and 
proper in either case. 

That centurion was duly sensible both of our 
Lord's power, and of his own unworthiness. To 
Him therefore the kindest advances were made. 
Just so to-day our Lord is ever ready to help the 
humble. The centurion commanded a hundred 
men; he was a captain, as we would say, not so 
high in office, not so high in pride as the noble- 
man. But this nobleman here seems rather to 
look for attention and respect. He seems to have 
thought that nothing less than our Lord's own 
presence could do any service. Nay, even this, 
that if Lie did not come quickly, He would come 
too late. "Sir, come down ere my child die." 

He was to be treated differently than the cen- 
turion. To be taught that the ]\Iessiah is no re- 
spector of persons; that the outward state and 
dignity are of no importance with Him, but the 
inward state and virtue of the man. To be con- 
vinced that God is a God afar off as well as near 
at hand, and that one single word should be as 
effectual as a touch, or an application. This our 



THE LOKD IS GOD NEAR AND AFAR OFF 125 



Lord showed by His not complying with the first 
entreaty, and by not going down to the house. 

When all went well with the nobleman, he did 
not feel his need of Christ. But when trouble 
came, he found there was no one but Christ who 
could help him. It is just the same now, when 
God sends us trouble. We must not decide hastily 
that it is a punishment, or as sent in anger; on 
the contrary, it is sent in love to bring us closer 
to Him whom we are so apt to forget when all 
goes well. 

The stars are in the heavens always, but we 
cannot see them when the sun is shining. Just 
so Christ's love can be best seen when the world 
seems dark. Christ answered the prayers of this 
nobleman with all his imperfections. May not 
we be encouraged to lay our troubles and sorrows 
at the feet of Jesus ? He says to all of us, "Come 
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." 



THE RESURRECTION 




ETAPHYSICIANS divide the uni- 



verse into two parts, the ego, and the 
non ego; the I, and the not I. From 
these two fields of investigation we 



derive truth. We often divide and differ as we 
draw exclusively from one or the other of these 
fields. The truth is, we should draw the proper 
truth from each. This is necessary for all broad, 
complete, well balanced minds. 

In this conection it might be well for us to 
consider what these flowers, this celebration, this 
Easter ceremony means. Is it simply a response 
to a laudable sentiment? Is it an outcome of 
faith sprung from an inner consciousness of an 
outward f act ? Is this commemoration something 
that we have derived from an inner reason or in- 
tuition, from the ego? Nay! None of these. 
Sentiment is good only when built on deeper 
truth. Faith is valuable only when it has to do 
with fact. Reason is sound only when it can dis- 
criminate between faith and opinion, fact and 
fancy. This occasion, with all that accompanies 



THE RESURRECTION 



127 



it, endeavors to set forth a fact which the Chris- 
tian world holds. That fact is beautifully put in 
poetic language thus: "Christ is risen from the 
dead." For men of the West, strong in intellect 
and power, and but little given to sentiment and 
feeling, here is meat for reason and data for 
evidence. Business men who carefully discrimi- 
nate between truth and falsehood; judges and 
lawyers who learn to sift and weigh evidence; 
physicians who arrive at facts through symptoms, 
to all I say, here is a fact purported to have taken 
place as material as ever you could wish in your 
daily life and practice. Either Christ rose from 
the dead, or He did not rise. That is the ques- 
tion. If you please, there is no sentiment about 
it, no feeling, nothing that you could arrive at 
from your inner consciousness or intuition. 

Nothing is purported to have taken place but 
a cold fact. Just as any other material fact takes 
place, and is witnessed by men, and testified to 
and passes into history, and which we do not 
arrive at through any inner consciousness, faith 
or feeling. Now, how would you arrive at the 
knowledge of anything that you find in history? 
Surely you would not believe anything just be- 
cause you read it in history. You discriminate 
between truth and falsehood, even in history. I 
surely do not tell you anything new when I tell 



128 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



you that the truth is not always told in a volume 
stamped historical. You judge of the symptoms. 
You sift evidence and weigh probabilities. This 
is what we do when we try to see whether or not 
we can believe that Christ rose from the dead. 
We do not look into ourselves to see whether Christ 
rose or not — into our inner consciousness or feel- 
ing or belief. It is nowhere said that Christ rose 
there. But we look outside of us, because the 
fact is purported to have taken place in another 
age and country, and witnessed by other men. 
The question is, therefore, a matter of evidence. 
Call all the witnesses in favor of the resurrec- 
tion — and they number more than five hundred — 
and they will all declare upon the witness stand 
that "Christ is risen." Xow call all the witnesses 
against the resurrection, including Roman officials 
and soldiers whose interest it was, as they thought, 
that He should not rise, and whose special duty it 
was to watch the lifeless form; and the best that 
they can testify is that they do not know, and 
seem reticent and desirous to hush the matter up. 
There is not a single witness against the resurrec- 
tion. Hat one. ISTone to say, Here are His bones, 
He is not risen. And nobody ever pretends to 
disprove the resurrection in that way. 

There are two ways in which a disproof is 
attempted: to invalidate the testimony of the 



THE RESURRECTION 



129 



hundreds of those who saw Christ after He had 
risen; and to show that the resurrection is con- 
trary to experience, and therefore not credible. 
A few words as to each of these attempts at dis- 
proof. The second I believe was Hume's cele- 
brated objection to miracles — because they were 
contrary to experience. It was not contrary to 
the experience of Christ and His Apostles, and 
over five hundred brethren at once. How do we 
get at experience but by the testimony of just 
such men? No man is fool enough to think that 
he can experience all there is to experience him- 
self. He must not conclude that what he cannot, 
or does not, experience is contrary to experience. 
In such a sense the rising of a balloon was once 
contrary to experience. If we believe in progress, 
as we all do, we must believe that we w r ill go con- 
trary to experience, or rather, have new and ad- 
vanced experiences, and that really was w T hat the 
resurrection was; a new, advanced experience. 

But how is the testimony of the five hundred, 
and more, to be invalidated? Who would be the 
best witnesses of such a fact ? Surely, His own 
relatives, and friends, and followers, who knew 
Him best and the facts of His death and burial; 
those very five hundred, the boldest of whom 
denied Him, the most devoted of whom forsook 
Him and fled at the very time in question, all 



130 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



of whom doubted His ever rising again, all of 
whom finally believed after the most searching 
examination. As good an opportunity as the Ro- 
mans had of rebutting the evidence, if they could, 
they have not a single witness ; and as well as they 
would like to have had evidence of that kind, not 
only at that time, but later during their ten long 
persecutions of the Christians, but not a single 
voice. 

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that 
those five hundred and more faithful brethren 
were mistaken, and on that account are not to be 
believed. What is there, then, that we can believe 
in history ? What single fact is there in all the 
history of the world that is so faithfully and well 
testified to as the resurrection of Christ? Are 
there any acts of Caesar, Charlemagne, or Crom- 
well, or the most prominent men in the world, 
better substantiated by evidence than the resur- 
rection? But you will say, they are reasonable, 
but this is not. Just one moment on this point. 
The more anything seems reasonable, the more 
credulous people are about it. They will then 
believe too soon. But take something that seems 
unreasonable, and as in the case of the apostles 
and brethren, some did not believe, and could not 
believe, and would not believe; but finally all be- 
lieved with the greatest unanimity. What greater 



THE RESURRECTION 



131 



certainty can one have of any historical fact ? 
~Now then, if you can tell me of a historic fact as 
well proven as the resurrection of Christ, I would 
like to have it pointed out to me. 

If you can believe in the resurrection then 
you can and ought to become a Christian. 

Now what do all these beautiful flowers mean 
besides ? They stand for something of infinite 
value. They symbolize the new life in Christ. 
They are only an outward show of what we aim 
inwardly to be. 

Here I think I see the greatest danger from 
formality: eagerness for outward show. I abomi- 
nate rivalry in mere external display when our 
rivalry should be in the life, in the Christian vir- 
tues and in faithfulness to the Church of God, 
of which flowers are but beautiful emblems. Then, 
my friends, flowers in churches are one of two 
things: hollow shams of pride which will fade 
with the fading flower, or the natural effusion of 
souls which have been forgiven, the emblem of that 
life which has been ideal during a season of medi- 
tation and prayer. It is a well-spent Lent which 
makes the Easter joys assert themselves in the 
beauty of holiness. 



THE REST THAT REMAINETH 



For if Joshua had given them rest, then would He 
not afterward have spoken of another day. 

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of 
God (Heb. iv:8 ? 9). 



HE Apostle speaks in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews of a rest that remaineth 
for the people of God, referring to 
the rest the Saviour gives, which is 
begun on earth and perfected in heaven. The 
way in which he speaks of it is very suggestive. 
The works, he says, were finished at the creation, 
when God rested at the end of the six days, and 
appointed the seventh as a day of rest. But that 
he says was not the true rest, for it was still fu- 
ture, and the Sabbath was only its type. Then 
Jesus, that is, Joshua, gave the Israelites rest in 
Canaan after their forty years wanderings; but 
neither was that true rest. It still remained in 
the future. Then a long time after that, David 
speaks in the Psalms of a rest that remaineth, yet 
in store, showing that the true rest had not been 
found in his day. And so age after age rolled 



THE REST THAT REMAINETH 



133 



away, change after change took place, and still 
the rest was spoken of as a thing that remained 
for the people of God — not as already obtained. 
How descriptive this is of human life ! Men seek 
rest; but they proceed from change to change to 
find that it is a thing that remains in the future ; 
just as of old, believers found it was not in the 
Sabbath, nor in Canaan, nor in David's time. 

Let us look at some of life's changes and con- 
ditions, and see how rest flits ever before us, but 
is not grasped. Childhood is generally associated 
in our minds with bright ideas. But little ones 
have their troubles, and probably as many and as 
hard to bear in proportion to their strength as 
those of older persons. The loss of a toy may be 
as much to a child as the loss of thousands to a 
man. Childhood is an immature state ; if its cup 
is easily filled, it is also easily emptied. Hardly 
anyone would wish to be a child forever. This 
is not our rest — it remaineth. And much of youth 
is vanity; so it appears as we look back upon it 
from advanced years. We can recollect many of 
its vexations and follies. We formed many an 
ardent attachment, perhaps, that we remember 
with a smile. We laid the foundations of evil 
habits, perhaps, which we shall carry with us to 
the grave. We lost opportunities for good that 
we can never regain. Even the young are not 



134 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



satisfied. The boy is fond of telling what he 
shall do when a man, and the young are wishing 
they were old enough to engage in business, and 
promising themselves what great things they will 
do then, and how happy they will be. Evidently 
they have not found the rest. It remaineth. And 
does middle age attain it ? Then the man is only 
laying foundations for hai3piness — amassing prop- 
erty to be enjoyed afterwards; planting trees and 
laying out grounds for his future paradise. Ask 
him then if he has obtained rest. His reply will 
be, How can one be happy laboring like a slave 
for the support of a family, separated often from 
loved ones by necessary avocations, w 7 ith little 
time for the care of children, or the culture of the 
mind, or for worship of God; and, besides this, 
having many a conflict, many a grudge and bitter 
feeling awakened among fellow-men by life's busi- 
ness and mistakes ? 

Or, ask the mother of a family, and her an- 
swer will be, I do not live, I do but exist. I have 
so many anxieties for my children, for their health, 
their happiness, their education and eternal wel- 
fare, that I find little rest or peace. But I am 
looking forward to the time when they shall be 
settled in the world, and then I hope to rest. So 
w r e travel on — the rest is not found yet. It re- 
maineth. But old age, serene old age with its 



THE REST THAT REMAINETH 



135 



silver-gray hairs of which some speak so poetic- 
ally — does old age bring rest? Ask the old man, 
and his reply may be, When I was young I could 
enjoy many things which now give me no pleas- 
ure. With limbs enfeebled, capacity for business 
gone, a burden to myself and perhaps to others, 
with infirmities ever increasing, with marriage 
bell and funeral knell sounding pretty much alike 
in my ears, w r ith a memory like a graveyard, full 
of the names of the dead, with loved ones de- 
parted, leaving me amid a generation of new- 
comers whom I care not to know, and who care 
less to know me — how can I be happy ? The rest 
is still in the future, even for the aged. It ever 
remaineth. 

And so it is with the conditions of life, as 
well as with its ages. I might go through with 
examples of all the changes and conditions of the 
human race, and the result would be the same, 
in prosperity and in adversity, in riches and in 
poverty, in sickness and in health — the rest not 
yet obtained, but laid up in store. There is a 
rest for those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in 
sincerity and in truth, and through His mercy 
and the confession of a true faith have become 
the children of God. But this rest will not be 
fully entered upon until we enter the heavenly 
land, though some portion and foretaste of it may 



136 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



be, and is enjoyed, here on earth. It is the rest 
which is found in God's favor and blessing in a 
heart set on things above, more than on things 
of earth. Young and old, rich and poor, all, if 
they will, may share it amid life's manifold 
changes. I care not what a person has, or has not 
besides, whether youth, wealth, world-honor, or 
age, poverty, low estate, health or disease ; if he 
has not found rest in God, he has not much. If 
he has God for his portion, he has enough, and 
can never be greatly miserable. I therefore call 
upon you, my brethren and friends, to seek first 
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
all that ye seek so eagerly in this world shall be 
added unto you. 

There is a rest that remaineth yet in store 
for us. How true it is ; do we not long for a rest ? 
And is it not certain that a perfect rest is not to 
be found in this world? Let us so live that we 
may have the assurance that we shall enter into 
that rest. 

This longing, and expectation, and hope of a 
rest that shall be enjoyed, is good for man. Let 
childhood look forward to the pleasures and sat- 
isfactions of youth and manhood. Let the young 
men and young women be ever so sanguine in 
their hopes and expectations of the future. It is 
all good, if rightly directed. I would not for a 



THE REST THAT REMAINETH 



137 



moment have these desires and longings changed. 
No. They are heaven-born gifts of God to man, 
which are to carry us easily on from earth to 
heaven, from time to eternity. We all must be 
convinced that we can enjoy, and would wish to 
enjoy, more than this world can give. We must 
know that this is not our resting place, or perma- 
nent abode. 

Time sweeps us on with an irresistible force. 
I would not for the world, nor could I if I would, 
have this joyful anticipation of future rest and 
pleasure taken away from the various states and 
conditions of the human race. On the contrary, 
I would have it extended to all conditions of 
men; so that, whatever befell them in this world, 
whether sorrow, sickness, pain, poverty or death, 
they would ever look forward to that heavenly 
home, that eternal resting place which Jesus has 
gone to prepare. I would that the old would look 
forward as well as the young, and never look back 
with the brooding thoughts of disaffection; but 
take up the motto of St. Paul and say, "I count 
not myself to have apprehended; but this one 
thing I do, forgetting those things which are be- 
hind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
are before, I press toward the mark for the prize 
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

And surely St. Paul had a life to look back 



138 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



upon with regret, if any of us have. Think of 
his life before his journey to Damascus, and 
think of his life afterwards. But he does not look 
back. My brethren and friends, if we suffer loss, 
pain or disappointment in this world, let us look 
beyond the things of earth and sense for true 
happiness and true riches, which will surely come 
if there be truth in the Bible, if there be a loving 
God and Father. Let us not run the risk of 
losing that heavenly rest which Christ hath pre- 
pared for those that love Him. Let us lay hold 
of all the means of grace that God has given us, 
in public and private prayer and praise; in the 
sacraments and services of the Church, in faith 
in God's favor and goodness, in hope of eternal 
joy, in love to God and man. 



THE PATRIARCHAL CHURCH 




HE Church to which we belong is that 
which the Almighty founded when 
He called Abraham and established 
His covenant with him. The Old 



Testament Church of God was established with 
Abraham. There were, however, promises of the 
Kingdom as early as the first Book of the Bible, 
that "the seed of the woman should bruise the 
serpent's head." But the Church, God's Kingdom 
upon earth, was not established until the clays of 
Abraham. From that time to this God has had 
His Church, His Kingdom, in the world. At 
first that Church was Patriarchal, i.e., the Patri- 
arch, or father of the nation, was the head of the 
kingdom, which was both Church and State. 
Then it became the Kingdom of Israel, and then 
of Judah, when the head of the Church was heredi- 
tary in the house of Aaron, and the subordinate 
ministers were of the house of Levi. ~No part of 
the Bible was written except by a member of this 
Church, or this Kingdom. The Bible was written 
by members of the Church of God, or members 



140 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



of His Kingdom. There is no doubt that that is 
one reason for the establishment of His Church ; 
that the members of it, i.e., some of them, might 
be qualified to write the word of God. That is 
one reason why Ave know we have the true word 
of God, that it w^as produced by God's Church, 
God's Kingdom. 

When Christ came, the old dispensation ended, 
but God's Kingdom did not end. Christ built 
His Church, His Kingdom, directly upon the old 
Kingdom. His Church was nothing more or less 
than the fulfilment of the old, a continuation of 
the old. It was all promised in the old. 

Closes was the first writer of the Old Testa- 
ment. And he did not live till after the time of 
Abraham. He was in the old Church established 
by God with Abraham when he wrote. And so 
were all the Old Testament writers. If you wish 
to remember when Moses crossed the Red Sea to 
the Promised Land, remember it was in the year 
1492 B. C, as it is in the same year after Christ, 
A. D. 1492, that Columbus crossed the sea to this 
Promised Land. 

ISTo one wrote the Eew Testament till Christ 
had established His Church, His Kingdom here. 
Xo one was authorized or prepared to write it 
before. The Church always comes before the 
Bible, the institution before the Book. The Chris- 



THE PATRIARCHAL CHURCH 



141 



tian Church, was established in the year of our 
Lord 33, but not a word of the New Testament 
was written until several years after that. And 
the New Testament writers did not finish till the 
year of our Lord 100. All the writers of the New 
Testament were members of the Church of God. 
It is the very same, identical, Church which has 
come down to us here, and of which we are mem- 
bers. The Church and the Bible have come down 
the ages together — the one witnessing to the other ; 
the Bible bearing a continuous testimony to the 
Church, and the Church bearing a continuous tes- 
timony to the scriptures, and both testifying to 
the truth of a Christian life. We belong to that 
Kingdom, and the Bible belongs to that Kingdom. 
Many are throwing the Kingdom away, and are 
clinging to the Book. We hold to both. God gave 
us both. They are two talents given us. We do 
not propose to throw one away or to hide it in a 
napkin, and be cast out. Let us see that we are 
in God's Kingdom, the one He organized upon 
earth, and in the Church that He established. 



THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH 




F you remember a date in the early 
Christian Church, remember the year 
325, A. D. At that time a great 
change took place. Before that time. 



the religion of the Roman Empire was heathen, 
and Christianity was an unpopular and persecuted 
religion. Of course there was no Pope of Rome 
during those 325 years, only the Bishop of Rome. 
Xow there was a tremendous change. The Em- 
peror Constantino had been converted to Chris- 
tianity. Then the heathen religion was turned 
out as the religion of the Empire, and the Chris- 
tian religion was adopted in its stead, a mighty 
change — the first union of Church and State. 
Const antine built Constantinople in the East. It 
became a rival of Rome, and its Bishop was con- 
sidered equal in rank with the Bishop of Rome. 
There was no superiority of Rome at this time, 
nor for a long time to come. The Roman Empire 
included the world. There were naturally two 
divisions : the West, which spoke Latin, with its 
headquarters at Rome, and the East, which spoke 



THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH 143 

Greek, with its headquarters at Constantinople. 
In the year 395, the Emperor had two sons. He 
divided the Empire between them; Arcadius got 
the West, and Honorius the East. That created 
something of a rivalry between Home and Con- 
stantinople. This division of the Empire into 
East and West finally resulted in the division of 
the Church into East and West. This first great 
division of the Church is variously dated from the 
year 800, to the year 1054. But I believe the 
year 1054 is generally put down as the date, as 
that was the time of the final break. Before that 
time there had been repeated attempts to heal the 
schism. The great schism, or split, between the 
East and West began in the ninth century. The 
history of the Church before the time of this great 
division, is very important. During this period 
were held the six great Ecumenical councils, the 
first of which was held in 325, and the last in 
680. And the questions decided at these councils 
are, I believe, generally accepted by all Churches, 
Greek, Roman and Protestant. This is not very 
generally know r n. The division of the Empire led 
to the division of the Church, and the difference 
of language also undoubtedly had something to 
do with it. But still this might be well to remem- 
ber : that the Church was one for a thousand years. 
The Roman or Western Empire fell in the year 



144 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



476. The Eastern Empire stood a thousand years 
longer. Northern Europe, called barbarian, over- 
threw the Western Empire. The great scholars 
in the Church were in the Eastern Empire — not 
in the West. They spoke Greek — not Latin. They 
were from places like Alexandria in Egypt, Con- 
stantinople, Antioch and Ephesus — not from 
Rome. All the Ecumenical councils were held in 
the Eastern Empire. Not one was held in the 
Western or Latin Church for a thousand years, 
and no pope ever presided at an Ecumenical coun- 
cil of the undivided Church, and was hardly ever 
present. Three of these General Councils were 
held at Constantinople. The Eastern Church was 
much more prominent in the discussions of the 
questions of the day than the Western. The lan- 
guage, no doubt, had much to do with that, as 
the Greek is much better adapted to the exact 
statement of difficult questions than the Latin. 
The Latin is a poor language for the purpose, 
inexact and lacking the definiteness of the Greek. 
The Greek and Latin Churches occupy much the 
same territory in Europe to-day as they did then. 
Draw a line north and south west of Greece, and 
it will divide the Greek and Latin Church to-day. 



THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD 



All the Athenians, and strangers which were there, 
spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or 
to hear some new thing (Acts xvii:21). 



ious to hear some new thing. This applies to 
preachers and Churches. In one respect, at least, 
this is a very laudable act; and in other respects 
it is not laudable. It is laudable, speaking of 
Churches and ministers, to go and hear something 
new if one is not quite satisfied with the old. 
The old may be error, and the new may be the 
truth. But to hear some new thing for the sake 
of variety, or for a pleasurable diversion, as we 
would go to an opera or to a theater, is not a good 
thing for a Churchman who is firmly grounded 
in God's own appointed ways. But some people 
seem never to be able to learn the truth and the 
right. St. Paul describes them as ever learning, 
and never coming to a knowledge of the truth. 




HOSE Athenians were very much like 
the people in these United States. 
They were very much like the people 
in Meeker. They, too, are very anx- 



146 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



Such people, whenever a new man comes along, 
a new preacher, or a new Church, are ever ready 
to hear some new thing. Now if people go with 
the idea that they may find a better Church, or 
one they like better, or one which they may think 
is more in accordance with the truth; or perhaps, 
a man -they might like better, I wish to have a 
word to say in regard to this. So far as the 
man or minister is concerned, no matter how 
good or how sincere he may be, it is not the 
man that we want. He can not save us by his 
goodness ; but it is the Church of the Living God 
that we want. We need to become members of 
the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. We want 
to find the Church to love that Christ loved. We 
want to give ourselves for the Church that He gave 
Himself for. 

Now that is the question for you and for me, 
and for everyone to consider. Instead of asking 
the question, What church shall I join? ask the 
question, Where is the Kingdom of Heaven, that 
I may enter it ? Where is the Church of the 
Living God? Where is the Pillar and ground 
of the truth ? I w T ant to enter that. Where is the 
Church that Christ loved? I want to join that, 
and love it, too. Where is the Church that Christ 
gave Himself for ? That shall be my Church, and 
I want to give myself fos it, too. Such is the lan- 



THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD 



147 



guage I love to hear. And we must hear it if 
we are to hear the highest truth. IsTow I believe 
we have found that Church. I believe that, by 
being members of this Church, we are members 
of the Kingdom. I believe we are members of the 
Kingdom of heaven now. I believe this Church is 
the Church of the Living God. I believe it is the 
j)illar and ground of the truth. I believe we love 
this Church in a way that no one else can love 
another Church which they call their own. This 
is a truth that has been generally remarked by 
people of all denominations. I believe this is 
possible, only because it is with the same love that 
Christ had for the Church. Xobocly loves his 
Church as much as a member of this Church 
loves his. Though our love may often be poor, 
yet it is the highest kind of love. 

Some seem to think that we can love the 
Church too much, and we have been accused of 
it often. They say we place it above the Bible, 
and above Christ. We find no such warning in 
the word of God that we can love the Church too 
much. Christ said He loved the Church, even 
so much that He gave Himself for it. There is 
no danger that we, poor, frail mortals, will love 
the Church more than Christ did, or even as much. 
And if we should love it with all our heart, mind, 
soul and strength, would we not love Christ even 



148 



MIXING TOWN SERMONS 



more ? No, there is no danger of loving too much ; 
the danger is the other way. We love too little. 
We love the Church too little, even we Church- 
men and Churchwomen, who are accused of loving 
it too much. But many do love the Church and 
give themselves for it. It takes a great deal of 
love for that; it takes the greatest love, though 
it is often done in a poor way; yet many of us 
give ourselves for the Church, give our efforts, 
give our life, give our best. But in order to love 
the Church and give ourselves for it, we must 
have a high ideal of the Church. We could not 
love any Church so. Any Church will not do. 
Those who think that one Church is just as good 
as another, will never love the Church, and give 
themselves for it. In order to do that, you must 
find the Church of the Living God, the pillar and 
ground of the truth. 

Now the question is how to find that Church. 
One who comes to you and tells you, no matter 
how great a preacher, or how good and sincere 
he may be — one who tells you that his church is 
just as good as any, that one church is just as 
good as another, generally has a very poor article 
to offer. He would not say that if he loved the 
Church and gave himself for it, and you will not 
find any such language. If a man has a good 
horse, say the best in the world, that man will 



THE CHUKCH OF THE LIVING GOD 149 

not say that one horse is just as good as another. 
But if a man has a poor house, say about the 
poorest breed that goes, he will be most apt to 
say one horse is just as good as another. Amid 
all this confusion, of multiplicity of Churches and 
denominations, I wish you to consider one thing, 
one test which is a test, perhaps the test of the 
Church of the Living Gocl. And we certainly do 
not want to be bothered with any other. And that 
test may be described by one word, Catholicity. 
That is the only single word that can describe it, 
unless it is Universality, and that does not de- 
scribe it so well. Catholicity is the test of the 
word of God. Anything is Catholic in the Church 
which has never been out of existence in the 
Church. We have a warrant from Holy Scripture 
that the Church shall be, and must be, Catholic, 
from texts like this: The gates of hell shall not 
prevail against the Church. That is as much as 
to say that nothing that is essential to the Church 
shall ever die, or go out of existence. 

And must not this be true, also, from what 
Christ says in another place : I will send you the 
Holy Ghost, and He shall lead you into all truth. 
Do you suppose, therefore, or do you think it 
possible, that a single essential in the Church was 
ever out of existence, or out of use or practice? 
And do you not suppose that all things necessary 



150 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



to the Church came into existence at once ? So 
we reason, and so all intelligent and thoughtful 
people will reason, it seems to me; and yet it is 
not at all as most Christians and churches reason. 
They leave out entirely this mode of arriving at 
the truth. Everything that has existed in the 
Church of God from the beginning, and never 
gone out of use, that is Catholic. Is it not reason- 
able to suppose that is the truth, the nearest to 
the truth ? If God wants anything as a part, or 
order, or essential, in His Church He will not 
let it die or go out of existence or out of practice. 
Therefore we reason thus. We do not take the 
Bible alone. It is nonsense to talk about taking 
the Bible alone for our guide. The Almighty 
has other ways of guiding us. What are w x e going 
to do with science ? Are we not going to be 
guided by science and our own reason, and by 
what we see in nature and learn therefrom? 
Those are very narrow who say we should be 
guided by the Bible alone. 

This rule of catholicity can be applied to the 
Church as a whole, or to any part of it. If we 
should trace the history of this Church back to 
a time later than that of Jesus and the Apostles, 
this Church would not be Catholic. If the his- 
tory of this Church extended back only to John 
Wesley or Martin Luther, or Henry VIII., or 



THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD 



151 



John Calvin, this Church would not be Catholic. 
The Church that existed through all these ages, 
before these men and after, from the time of 
Christ to the present day, that Church is Catholic, 
and that Church is the Church of the Living God. 
Do you suppose that Christ established a Church 
that only began with John Wesley one hundred 
and fifty years ago ? Do you suppose that Christ 
established a Church that began with Henry VIII., 
or Martin Luther, or Calvin, or Knox, fifteen hun- 
dred years after Christ's Ascension ? Do you sup- 
pose that God has a Church here that has not 
lasted, has not continued, ever since the days of 
St. Paul? What God does, lasts. Truth never 
dies. It is error that comes and goes, springs 
into life and dies again. This Church, then, was 
not started by Henry VIII., as so many pre- 
tenders to education claim. It is Catholic, and 
has been in existence since the days of the Apostles. 
So is the Bible Catholic, and the ministry of this 
Church; and the Sacraments, and everything es- 
sential about this Church is Catholic; it has con- 
tinued, all have continued alive and in practice 
from the beginning, and that, too, not by a few 
in a corner, but by a large part of the Christian 
world. 



DUTY TO GOD AND MAN 



Bender therefore to all their dues (Romans xiii: 7). 



they dared not because the people had great re- 
spect for Him. So, because the Scribes and 
Pharisees feared the people, they took another 
course — they tried "to entangle Him in His talk." 
They thought He would say something to offend, 
either the Jewish people or the Roman govern- 
ment. Ever since the return of the Jews from 
captivity, they had had no king. They had been 
governed by their high priests. Juclea, in our 
Lord's time, formed a part of the great Roman 
Empire, and was governed by a ruler appointed by 
the Roman Emperor. Was it likely that the Jews 
would be content with this state of things ? They 
were no more content than any other people con- 
quered and ruled by a foreign power. They were 
restless, discontented, unhappy, hoping sooner or 
later to break from Roman bondage. Their reason 




ESUS had related several parables, and 
the Pharisees w T ere very much dis- 
pleased because He referred to them. 
They would lay hands on Him, but 



DUTY TO GOD AND MAN 



153 



for wishing so earnestly for the Messiah was that 
they trusted He would certainly conquer the hated 
Romans. And, besides their natural dislike to a 
conqueror, most of the Jews thought it not only 
humiliating, but sinful to acknowledge a foreign 
ruler. Because th§y thought, as we read in the 
Book of Genesis, God had given them their land 
as their own forever (Gen. xiii: 14-15), and there- 
fore they considered it disobedient to Him to con- 
fess that they were no longer owners of the prom- 
ised land. 

Now see what this has to do with the question 
which the Pharisees and Herodians propounded 
at this time: "Is it lawful to give tribute unto 
Caesar or not V- To pay taxes to the Romans was 
to acknowledge their authority. The Pharisees, 
and most of the Jews, thought it wrong to do so, 
although they were obliged to submit. But the 
Herodians thought it was right. They were a 
party among the Jews who were anxious to make 
friends with the Roman authorities. Some of 
each of these parties came to Jesus, hoping that He 
would think they had been disputing among them- 
selves and wanted His decision. They tried to 
flatter Him — they called Him Master; they said 
He was true, and cared for no man's opinion. 
Then they asked Him if it were lawful to give 
tribute unto Caesar. With such artfulness or 



154 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



shrewdness they came to Jesus. They thought He 
must decide with one party or the other. If He 
said it was lawful, then the Pharisees could have 
stirred up the people against Him as one who took 
part with the Roman oppressors. But if He said 
it was unlawful, the Herodians, the partisans of 
Herod, could accuse Him before Pilate, the 
Roman officer, on the charge of "forbidding to 
give tribute to Caesar." Afterwards we find, in 
fact, that He was brought before Pilate charged 
with this very accusation (St. Luke xxiii:2) — 
"We found this fellow forbidding to give tribute 
to Caesar." 

Let us see the foundation of this charge. What 
was Christ's answer in this plot in which two op- 
posing parties had united, the partisans of the 
people, and the partisans of Rome ? "Bring Me 
a penny, that I may see it" (St. Mark xii: 15). 
And they brought Him a penny, the very coin in 
which the hated tax was paid. There it was — 
stamped as all Roman coins were, with the head 
of the reigning emperor, and bearing his name and 
titles. "Whose is this image and superscription ?" 
The Jews could not but answer, "Caesar's." 
"Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which 
are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are 
God's." As if to say, Let them without scruple 
render to Caesar all that belongs to him. Let 



DUTY TO ®0D AND MAN 



155 



them pay his taxes, keep his laws, for loyal sub- 
mission to their earthly ruler need in no way in- 
terfere with their duty to their God. While they 
rendered unto Caesar the things which were 
Caesar's, they could at the same time render to 
God the things which were God's: the faith, the 
love, the obedience, which were His due from 
every true Israelite. 

Could either the Pharisees or the Herodians 
find fault with this answer ? The Pharisees found 
that Jesus insisted as strongly as ever they did on 
the duty of giving to God what belonged to Him, 
while the Herodians could not complain that He 
forbade giving to Caesar his due. They were as- 
tonished at His wisdom, and at the failure of 
their plan; they left Him, and went their way. 
"The powers that be are ordained of God." St. 
Peter writes, "Honor all men. Love the brother- 
hood. Fear God. Honor the king." Jesus told 
the Jews to pay their taxes. Nothing can excuse 
us from obedience to lawful authority, except when 
that authority commands us to do what God has 
forbidden. And we must be very sure that God 
has forbidden it, and not be like the Jews who 
thought God had forbidden Roman rule in Pal- 
estine. 

Fortunately, our duty to God and our duty 
to those in authority do not conflict. Many of 



156 



MINING TOWN SERMONS 



God's servants have been able to serve faithfully 
both their earthly and their heavenly Master. The 
life of Joseph and of Daniel is ample proof of this. 
Joseph in the Egyptian court, and Daniel in 
Babylon. In fact, did not these men serve each 
of their masters better by serving them both ? So 
can we serve our God better, and our country, by 
doing our duty to them both. 

But suppose the powers that be are not Chris- 
tian, and do not believe in God; in fact, are op- 
posed to Christianity ; we are to render to all their 
dues. This is proved by Joseph's faithful service 
in Pharaoh's court; by Daniel's service under 
Babylonian kings; and, above all, by Christ com- 
manding that tribute money be paid to heathen 
Rome. Our privilege is to follow Christ's liberty 
and Christ's law, serving both our country and 
our God. Thus we may at one and the same time 
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
and unto God the things which are God's." 

St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, teaches 
that civil rulers are servants of God for the public 
good — even heathen rulers, because the rulers of 
the very Romans that St. Paul wrote to were 
heathen. St. Paul and St. Peter both suffered 
death because they would not worship heathen 
gods at Xero's command. Yet St. Paul calls them 
ministers of God for the public good. He says 



DUTY TO GOD AND MAN 



157 



they attend continually on service to God and the 
public weal, and are therefore entitled to our ser- 
vice and support. He teaches that taxes are paid 
to rulers as ministers of God, and their proper end 
is the glory, honor, and service of God, and the 
welfare of His people. 

Render to all their dues ; owe no man anything, 
save one, namely, Love. Love is a debt ever to be 
paid, and yet ever due. For when Faith will be 
absorbed in sight, and Hope in fruition, yet Love 
will remain a debt to be paid in Eternity, and yet 
due for Eternity. 



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